Showing questions tagged:

Hello. I have tried to copy my Thunderbird account to my MacBook. This has happened but it has only copied an empty saved e mail Folder. I was hoping for all my e mails, being my records.

I have saved relevant e mails to local folders in my Thunderbird account on my Applemac. I opened up Thunderbird on my MacBook and downloaded my Thunderbird account but i… (read more)

I have saved relevant e mails to local folders in my Thunderbird account on my Applemac. I opened up Thunderbird on my MacBook and downloaded my Thunderbird account but it did not copy those local folders, merely 1 empty folder. Without these also shown in my Thunderbird account when I am away from home, I cannot see those records. I am struggling to find a solution. Are you able to help please? Alan Dowler

Open 90 1 144

I want Archives to save emails in seperate files

Hi, I need some help! Thunderbird used to have archive settings in which I could choose to save my e-mails locally in my archive folders with 1 file per 1 email and not e… (read more)

Hi,

I need some help! Thunderbird used to have archive settings in which I could choose to save my e-mails locally in my archive folders with 1 file per 1 email and not everything that's in a folder saved to a single file.

How can I get this back? Is there some hidden settings that can be accessed to get it done?

I need every email in one file! I'm going nuts trying to sort years of e-mail duplicates. If I can have a file per message, then I can at least use my PC duplicate file program to compare file content and find the similar ones. But with everything of one folder in the same archive file I'll be cursed to have to manually go through thousands of e-mails by hand! So if there is a way to return the previous archive format (*wdseml files??, it seems?) then I want to know how to set that setting.

Alternatively a local folder duplicate e-mail cleaning tool? There used to be some but I couldn't get it to work now!

Open 20 126

How to transfer my thunderbird email with all folders to another computer after computer with email folders won't boot up

I have removed the drive from the computer that will not boot up. I hope to be able to transfer my "profile" to my new computer from that drive. I understand that I will … (read more)

I have removed the drive from the computer that will not boot up. I hope to be able to transfer my "profile" to my new computer from that drive. I understand that I will need to have the same version of Thunderbird installed on my new computer in order to transfer my "profile". Since I can't access Thunderbird on my "crashed" computer, how can I know what version I had installed previously? How do I find where to load that version on my new computer?

Open 15 255

moving folders, subfolders, and emails from one Tbird account to another Tbird account

I have an existing Tbird account for my Gmail emails. Have set up a new Tbird account for my Outlook email account. Would like to move all emails, including folders and… (read more)

I have an existing Tbird account for my Gmail emails. Have set up a new Tbird account for my Outlook email account. Would like to move all emails, including folders and subfolders, to my new Outlook Tbird account (with the intent of closing my Gmail account altogether).

Would appreciate learning the steps to ensure the emails, folders, and subfolders are moved from Tbird Gmail account to Tbird Outlook account

Open 15 496

All my emails are gone, local folders and even starred messages - oldest msgs are 26/03/2026

I will preface this with no I do not have a backup - which is my fault. However I did not expect my account to be nuked into oblivion with no explanation. As per the titl… (read more)

I will preface this with no I do not have a backup - which is my fault. However I did not expect my account to be nuked into oblivion with no explanation.

As per the title, all my emails are gone. My local folders are devoid of anything I can use and am hoping that everything may be on a server somewhere. This is years of emails, important correspondence, bank information, business, etc. The ONLY thing I can think of is when I download the TB app for android and sync'd it using the QR on the desktop version of thunderbird. I then checked stuff the next day and everything was gone barring emails from that day, all folders, everything was gone. Is there no way to recover this?

Open 12 54

Help with Thunderbird pls

Hi! I am trying to use the Thunderbird application to help me view a huge '.mbox' file from an email account that is no longer active. I have the entire file saved to my … (read more)

Hi! I am trying to use the Thunderbird application to help me view a huge '.mbox' file from an email account that is no longer active. I have the entire file saved to my computer as I downloaded it before the account was closed. Can you help me access those files? I am working on a huge project and really need to look for date sand times of emails sent in the mailbox so that i can piece together the timeline of the project. I would greatly appreciate this!!!

Open 12 72

Good way to store old mail

Having been using Thunderbird for over 25 years, I have some folders with very old mail which I am unlikely to ever want to access, but don't want to throw away. And, I… (read more)

Having been using Thunderbird for over 25 years, I have some folders with very old mail which I am unlikely to ever want to access, but don't want to throw away. And, I am in a space crunch. Would it be reasonable to zip the contents of appropriate mail folders, store those elsewhere, then clear out the folder. Then, I could unzip to restore if needed.

Ideas?

Open 10 108

How to move to a new PC with multiple accounts stored on 2 different drives?

I have 5 email accounts stored in drive I: and 3 in drive C:, with multiple profiles (in I:(...)\Roaming\Thunderbird and \Local\Thunderbird AND the same in C:). (Window… (read more)

I have 5 email accounts stored in drive I: and 3 in drive C:, with multiple profiles (in I:(...)\Roaming\Thunderbird and \Local\Thunderbird AND the same in C:). (Windows 10). I need to move to a new PC (Windows 11), where drives are named C: and D:. I tried to use the Import/export function, but the accounts previously in I: don't appear (only the basic account shows, no inbox/sent, etc. and no data). I manually changed one of them to C: and then import again only the data. That was not possible for all the accounts and many emails (90%) are missing, also from the account were it "worked". I can find some emails in folders at the bottom of the account list, but many emails are yet missing, and received/sent not clearly defined. NB: on Windows 10 I have the latest esr version, on Windows 11 the latest NOT esr version.

So I tried to manually transfer the archives, but when copying from \Local\Thunderbird to an USB for the transfer, many files (more then 40k) went missing due to errors of copying.

What can I try?

Open 7 81

Want to migrate AOL large email file with 2000 emails to my hard drive which is not possible with AOL internal tools.

Want to migrate AOL large email file with 2000 emails to my hard drive which is not possible with AOL internal tools. Is this possible? I have a Firefox account and a Thu… (read more)

Want to migrate AOL large email file with 2000 emails to my hard drive which is not possible with AOL internal tools. Is this possible? I have a Firefox account and a Thunderbird email account now, just today. Used to have a FF account years ago. Normally use Edge on my Windows 11 HP laptop. Thank you.

Open 7 63

Error Several times a month but I haven't made any changes. "The message failed to send. The message could not be sent because the connection to the outgoing server (SMTP) ”server name" failed. The server may be unavailable or refusing SMTP connections."

Hello, I apologize, I am uncertain if this is the appropriate place to post this topic. I am having significant difficulty with the forum system when we require assistanc… (read more)

Hello, I apologize, I am uncertain if this is the appropriate place to post this topic. I am having significant difficulty with the forum system when we require assistance.

I have been using Thunderbird for over a year now, and I have wanted to stop using it since the first month of use. Several times a month, I am unable to send messages even though I haven't made any changes. The message keeps popping up: “The message failed to send. The message could not be sent because the connection to the outgoing server (SMTP) ”server name" failed. The server may be unavailable or refusing SMTP connections. Please check that your outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again."

This is supposed to be my work email. I understand that ThunderBird is a volunteer platform. And that you do what you can, but I can't afford to be stuck like this for a “yes” or a “no.” You were highly recommended to me by my website host, and I regret it. I am no longer in contact with that person, so I can no longer get the assistance I needed several times a month to get the mailbox up and running again. However, I continue to receive mail at that address.

Is there a way to automatically transfer emails from ThunderBird to Proton Mail? If so, how do I do that, please?

Thank you.

Open 6 126

importing old thunderbird emails now stored on an external ssd

Hello! I have a bit of a long story but hopefully this won't take too much of your time. I have a windows 11 pc that came with a realtively small ssd. I installed thun… (read more)

Hello! I have a bit of a long story but hopefully this won't take too much of your time. I have a windows 11 pc that came with a realtively small ssd. I installed thunderbird and used it for many months. then i cloned this ssd to a new higher capacity ssd and installed the new ssd into my pc. i continued with thunderbird and my new ssd for roughtly 3 months but i found that the new ssd was glitching and was giving me problems.

about two weeks ago i removed the cloned high-capacity ssd which had the three months of new emails and i reinstalled the old original ssd into my pc and have continued with thunderbird. i also installed the glitchy high-capacity ssd into a docking station and i have it connected to my pc as an external drive. So my problem is that while my pc has all my original thunderbird emails, it is missing the three months of emails that are on the cloned high-capacity ssd. And to further complicate things, i have been using my reinstalled old ssd for two weeks and have accumulated new thunderbird emails.

how can i copy or import the three months of thunderbird emails that are on my high capacity ssd that is attached to the computer now as an external drive. Remember that not only does that high capacity drive have three months of emails that I need, it also has all my original thunderbird emails that it obtained through the cloning process. so my concern is that whatever import process i might do, it is either going to cause a lot of duplication of the old emails or it is going to wipe out or disturb the most recent activity (my last two weeks) when one profile is replaced entire replaces another.

MY QUESTION: is there a way to selectively import just the last three months of my thunderbird emails from the high capacity ssd that is connected currently as an external drive? I know the specfic date range that i am looking for.

thanks eric

Open 6 298

I am trying to "import" an old thunderbird profile into my new profile in order to merge old e-mails. The "Import" function does not word.

bold textI recently had my computer get stuck in the "automatic repair" loop making it impossible to boot up. I restored a several months old back up onto a different har… (read more)

bold textI recently had my computer get stuck in the "automatic repair" loop making it impossible to boot up. I restored a several months old back up onto a different hard drive. I can boot on the new hard drive, but Thunderbird is missing several months of e-mails. I have tried importing from the old hard disk, but IT DOES NOT WORK. Alll it does is create a new "Local Folders" with nothing in it. I have tried exporting the old profile to a zip file, but it is 14 GB, more than Thunderbird can handle. How can I import the old e-mails into the working version of Thunderbird on the new hard drive. Please, do not say "use the import function" as i have already found it does not work.

Open 5 288

moving a folder to a "local folder" in Thunderbird.

I was cleaning up my GMX account in Thunderbird. Then, I wanted to move a whole folder out of the normal one and picked "local folder", but now I can't find where that lo… (read more)

I was cleaning up my GMX account in Thunderbird. Then, I wanted to move a whole folder out of the normal one and picked "local folder", but now I can't find where that local folder should be.

It would be very important for me to find my files again.

Why does it say "local folder" when it doesn't create a local folder somewhere?

Thank you for your help.

Open 5 45

Cannot transfer Local Folders to Outlook

Hello, I have three profiles, and then a large number of sub folders in Local Folders. I would like to know how to transfer these Local Folders to Outlook. the profiles… (read more)

Hello, I have three profiles, and then a large number of sub folders in Local Folders. I would like to know how to transfer these Local Folders to Outlook. the profiles and their emails have all been transferred successfully.

Open 5 99

converting an .msg to a .eml

I have a gmail backed work account. Until recently we used outlook classic as the interface for this account. It is now unusable due to Microsoft lack of support. NEW… (read more)

I have a gmail backed work account. Until recently we used outlook classic as the interface for this account. It is now unusable due to Microsoft lack of support. NEW OUTLOOK IS AWFUL. So I found Thunderbird and really enjoy its look and feel. I am having issue opening a previously saved outlook file in the .msg format. I have tried the file extension conversion to .eml and when i open the file i only get header data and addresses. No body or attachments. I really want to continue using Thunderbird but this issue is a deal breaker should i not be able to fix it. Please help. I cant be the only one. Windows 11

Open 5 45

I don't find emails in Thunderbird from April 2023 until January 2026

After reinstalling Sonoma (before I had Sequoia) and Thunderbird on my MacBook Air, I cannot find any emails from April 2023 to January 2026. I use the POP option in Thu… (read more)

After reinstalling Sonoma (before I had Sequoia) and Thunderbird on my MacBook Air, I cannot find any emails from April 2023 to January 2026. I use the POP option in Thunderbird for my main accounts (the two from GMX). I have tried various solutions and requested support, but nothing has helped. What can I do?

Open 5 108