Thunderbird Community Forum

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to access some old emails which I know were stored on a laptop running Ubuntu 20.04. The laptop was wiped years ago but I have restored the data from a backup in October 2023 or thereabouts.

When I try to open Thunderbird it throws up a dialogue saying 'You have launched an older version of Thunderbird' suggesting I need to re-create my accounts. I just need to access the emails from the restored data and I'm worried if I connect to the mail server that my settings might just erase the emails all over again.

What should I do?

Thanks in advance. Any help would be gratefully received.

The Windows 10 PC crashed after an update, but I have command line access. I copied the profile folder from the Thunderbird installation to a USB drive, but can't find a way to move the subfolders (like 'name' and 'name.msf') to an existing installation on the new PC.

Is there a way to import these into the new installation?

Essentially, I’m wondering if thunderbird can be used to store old emails on a hard drive. I am wondering because I would like to be able to access them without the ability to use the internet because it would be on an old computer with no WiFi card or Ethernet capabilities. I would like to be able to store all of these emails with as little connected to the internet as possible.

Hi, I had/have an IMAP account at my ISP Host, with TB connecting to.

There has been a number of occasions where I have used the Servers IMAP copy of emails as a back up, and from memory am sure that when connecting a fresh client, all emails/folders etc updated and down loaded from the server > client, in fact nothing got deleted on either side, and both sides synced.

My host (Fasthosts - I will name and shame) deleted my whole IMAP account by mistake.

They hastily re-instated just the package but all the emails had been wiped from the server.

I did though have a full copy of all emails on my TB IMAP client.

When I reconnected my client to the server after the re-instatement, i expected my clients emails to upload to the server, but instead they 'vanished' - and I have nothing but empty folders.

Am I able to recover any of these emails from my client, ie are they sitting in a file/folder still ??

TB has restarted a number of times since, and I fear the folder may have been compacted, but I cannot be sure.

Thoughts appreciated.

I use Thunderbird as a POP server and keep some historic read emails in my inbox as well as archiving others to local folders. I am moving to a new windows 11 computer from an old windows 8 computer. So I exported my Thunderbird profile on the old computer, copied it across to the new computer, installed Thunderbird on it, then imported the profile. All my local folders are there with their historic emails, but there are no read emails in the inbox, only the unread ones ?? Be grateful for any explanation of why this is and how I get them back. thanks Martyn Jones

Put up a message regarding support to resolve issue with Thunderbird this morning. Cannot see the message or if any answers? Query was ref downloading email & history to Thunderbird while moving to another server provider (Gandi) and all history now missing.

Migrating from a Win 10 laptop to a Win 11 laptop. Need to move the local folders as well but they were assigned a different ID and I can't change the target address in the new installation. Thanks in advance for your help. Rick.

I have installed Thunderbird in my new computer and moved the entire contents, accounts, etc. from the old one to the new one. Alas the Local Folders did not follow. Therefore to move my Local Folders from Thunderbird in one computer to another I have followed the following procedure:

On the old computer, go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder and click Open Folder.Exit Thunderbird.Open the Mail folder, then enter the Local Folders directory.Locate the large files without extensions (e.g., Inbox, Archive) and any corresponding folders ending in .sbd.Copy these files to your USB drive.

I do not know where I should put these folders in my new computer so that they will appear under Local Folders in my new computer.

I have downloaded the latest version of Thunderbird. The old computer uses Windows 10 and the new Windows 11. I have put the folders on the desktop of my new computer pending the reply to where I should put them so that they appear in Local Folders.

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I'm running unsupported Win 7

And yes, I could not find anything in the "help" system that related.

I maintain a Hotmail account and copy traffic to my local system. Upon reboot Thunderbird shows some files from 2024 and no local folders where I stored all my re-directed traffic.

I've run some system / disk checks and no obvious problems.

Any thoughts besides upgrading to current OS etc? Is there a Thunderbird backup solution to move files away from the active drive to protect them?

I am moving my Thunderbird (32 bit) data from an old Win 7 computer to Linux Mint on a new machine with Thunderbird 64 bit. I have followed all the advice to copy the old computer profile to the profile folder in Mint, but nothing appears in Thunderbird. My pop3 email server has 2-factor authentication; I can set this up and access or send new emails, but I can't import all my old email folders. The old Thunderbird is version 115.18.0 (32 bit) and says it is "up to date on esr update channel" The Mint Thunderbird is 140.0.6 esr (64 bit) and was recently installed with Mint.

As these versions are 32 bit and 64 bit respectively, I don't see how I can make them the same version, as recommended for transferring profiles.

How can I make this work?

Hi, I accidentally deleted all my emails on my desktop. I was in Account Settings and pressed the red "Delete" button that appears next to the account name on the screen. I was trying to reset the email account settings but when i pressed delete, the mail account and all my old messages were deleted from my desktop.

I do see a file in the folder in User/appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles.../mail/mail.server.co.za that says "Inbox" and I THINK that might be my old emails but I can't seem to get Thunderbird to open the file. I've tried using ImportExportNG but it still won't open that file.

Is there a way to recover my old emails without having to take my computer to a specialist?

Appreciate any help. Hani

This morning I noticed that all emails prior to May 1 were missing from folders that I created. I assumed (incorrectly) that they were in the sbd file that I backed up in April. So I moved that file into the proper destination location but nothing popped up. I then restored the old sbd file back and now I don't even see any the the folders that I created. Note: when I click on the sbd file I do see the folders but they don't appear under Local Folders I've googled and used AI....no luck

I’ve set up a new email service type, IMAP, to take the place of my old POP email. The POP email doesn’t have a synchronization and storage feature, so I’m wondering: First, how can I combine the old POP emails with the new IMAP address; and second, how do I transfer DRAFTS and SENT EMAILS from the old to the new one?

TDS is dropping support for email services 10/31/2026. They are providing an option to migrate our data to a new provider Everymail, I'm wondering what other options I have and what it means to my current mail data(Inbox, Archive etc..) if I go to another provider(not Everymail)?

I've used just the default profile I setup when I started using Thunderbird, I can't tell where all of that data is stored and I don't want to loose some of the Archived messages from over the years.

 When I click on properties for the Thunderbird Archive Folder it shows:

mailbox://botto%40chorus.net@mail.tds.net/Archive

Is this data on my local storage or on TDS?

Any help here would be appreciated, Thanks

I'm using TB 150.0.2 on a Mac with the latest update of MacOS.

I just deleted all of my archived emails, thinking it was stuff that I had sent to trash. I.e. I deleted all archives, then emptied trash. Only after I did that did I realize that I had deleted things I want to save.

I'm pretty sure there's no way to undo emptying the trash, but I use Time Machine to back up. If I open time machine and go to the most recent back-up, I should be able to get everything back, right?

What folder (or folders) should I restore from a Time Machine back-up?

Hi, To "save" the info in my Local Folders? Are they excluded from Compacting? I use this folder as a "what I've done" library. The others I don't care about. Thanks

I am running the latest versions of Thunderbird and Linux mint 22.3, and for the fourth time files are not being read correctly after an update. I store email files on a separate SSD drive (just in case the main drive crashes). I have just updated to the latest version of Tbird. After every update it loses the connection to Local Folders. When I relink, it reads some folders but not others. I can see the missing folders via a file manager, but Tbird will not/cannot read them all. I have tried to relink several times, but no joy. If I move Local Folders to the main drive, will that solve the problem? Is it a Linux problem? Or a browser problem? Do I need to switch browsers?

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?

I was just notified that my email provider is ending service after 30 years. I need to move all my folders and messages from my old Provalue account to a new Gmail account. Is there an easy way to do this? Can I just change the account name and password as well as the server settings? They are both Pop3 accounts. I also need to point 131 message filters to the new Gmail account. Is there a way to do this without having to rewrite all of the filters? Do I need to copy all of the folders and messages to the new account manually? I have 30 years of emails that I still refer back to occasionally. I need help, what do I do? Thanks in advance for any help I can get.

Using Linux Mint 22.3. Every time Thunderbird updates it loses the LocalFolders address. In relinking I have in error stored downloaded messages in two different LocalFolder locations. Is there any way to move all the existing stored data to one location?