Thunderbird Community Forum

Old PC died and will not start up. I bought a new PC and was able to recover most file in the initiating the new desktop. I installed Mozilla Thunderbird on the new PC, but when I opened it only 55 EMAILS were available with the oldest being about 2 weeks old dating back to July 16, 2026. Is there a time limit for maintaining EMAILS online? Also, all of my contacts and Calendar events are not available.

I had created several folders to save important EMAILS and none of those sub-folders are visible to me. How do I get to those folders and EMAILS? Contacts and calendar are not as important, but they were used all of the time to communicate and stay on schedule

I tried to import using the tool provided, but received the following message: Import failed unexpectedly, more information may be available in the error console.

I have lots of important information that I can't access!

Help

To be really useful to me I need Thunderbird to be able to read my Outlook pst-files.

For years my practice has been to move emails from the ost-file to the pst-file too limit the size of the ost-file. Both files are localized on my computer but only the emails in the ost-file are in my gmail-account. So the method helps me limit the size of my gmail-account but still gives me total access to my email-history.

Without a similar possibility in Thunderbird it's difficult for me to leave Outlook, which I really want to. Can you help me?

I am trying to import some mbox files to help sort scrape and sort my emails for a long ongoing complaint with my housing. However I can’t get past finding the local folder to then import the mbox file? Does anyone know where this is? I am using latest Thunderbird 153.0 and MacOSX Tahoe 26.5.1 Thank you.

I have Thunderbird on the old computer. For twenty+ years I have read the instructions for moving it to the new computer. i cannot understand/am not at all confident in my ability AND I have only ONE keyboard/mouse. I have to move it from one computer to the other to operate them.

Right now all email is on the old computer, no email is on the new computer. No email has ever been on my cellular telephone. One set of periforals - keyboard/mouse.

I DO have the Bravura, the Plugable transfer cable and accompanying software, and many other things came across, but not the Thunderbird.

I want to do the move/installation correctly so that not one stored email is lost or corrupted.

I need help.

I am upgrading from my old HP computer running Windows 10 (not window 11 compatible) to a new Lenovo PC running windows 11. How can I transfer all my emails and email files to the new computer sothat I do not lose them?

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.

Used the export function to export to zip file on a usb, (841mb) can see the zip file is there, then open thunderbird on desktop (Zorin 18.1) choose import , choose the zip file and get a message "nothing can be imported from the selected source" bit frustrating, hope one of you gurus can sort me out. Cheers John

I'm trying to dump Windows and move to Linux and I need to migrate my existing mail. The Export tool says it exports accounts, messages, address books, and settings. I've done this and have my Linux Mint Thunderbird installation up and running. The problem is the only "messages" it exports is the Inbox. Not "Sent" or any of the other 25 folders I've created to organize my mail. Is there ANY tool available that will export everything and then import it into a new installation?

I for sure don't want to have to dual boot just to do email. If I can't accomplish a complete cut-over, I'll abandon Linux and stick with Windows (ugh!).

I'm actually using Mint right now and I would need to go back to Windows to get that version number. Suffice it to say, as of yesterday, it was up to date with the latest Windows version.

I found two horrible bugs in Thunderbird and the script that migrates from Seamonkey mail to Thunderbird. I just tried switching earlier this year because I really liked the way Seamonkey mail did things, but so many websites considered Seamonkey out of date and unsupported that I tried to fully switch from Seamonkey to Firefox and Thunderbird.

The migration script made one inbox from Seamonkey into two main mail folders with inboxes in Thunderbird. And my Seamonkey mail folder had not only the usual Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Junk and Trash folders, but well over a dozen specialty inboxes where incoming mail was stored after filtering. And it had more than 10 years of archived (not compressed, just old mail from Inbox and Sent) in the main folder as well. The script failed to move all the mail, in fact, didn't move any old mail, but instead made new main folder, Inbox, Sent, etc and treated the existing mail as a separate mail account in the old main folder. I tried to fix that, and then T-bird or its filter script started deleting msgs from the old mailboxes, treating them as junk or something. I had the original copies from Seamonkey, copied them again and Thunderbird axed them again. Part of the problem was that the Thunderbird migration script did not copy the filtering system I had set up into the Thunderbird folders. Another was that the script did not move the junk mail settings and thought everything from the Seamonkey folder was junk. I'm pretty sure it failed to move my addressbook and other key files as well. This set of collosal processing errors developed in the years after Thunderbird was split off from Seamonkey instead of being kept synced with the excellent way Seamonkey handled email. As it stands, Thunderbird is just a big destructive virus.

In short, the migration code made major mistakes migrating from its predecessor program, and Thunderbird added some killer errors on top of the migration script. I have filed a bugzilla report a couple of months ago but don't have any realistic hope that Mozilla can or will fix the issues I found.

I need an email client that can take over at least the mail folders from Seamonkey so I can keep on using those folders and a POP/SMTP connection to transfer mail through my ISP's mail handler.

Send your reply to John <fridthof@gmail.com>. If it goes to my democritus7@att.net address, I am not likely to find it in the mountain of email that's gathered since I downloaded it previously.

My wife has a computer that hasn't been used for about 7 years and it contains a lot of emails that she would like to have on her newer computer.

The older computer has an older version of Thunderbird which doesn't allow the Importexport ng extension to be added.

Although I've copied her old profile, I can't see how to extract the emails from it into the newer version of Thunderbird on the newer computer. Is it possible and if so, how please.

Thanks.

Hi My desktop computer was stolen in 2019. Somehow I managed to get my emails and archived emails back on a new computer via a computer repair shop which build me a new better comp. Then 2 years ago my computer crashed and I can't get Mozilla Thunderbird back but need my archived emails etc. In the meantime I received my emails directly from Vox. How can I set up my old Thunderbird account again without loss of any archived emails. PS: I don't have the old password anymore either. Thanks in advance

I'm having trouble with my provider when trying to send a message. I thought I'd save a draft and send it later -- after my provider problem is resolved. After "Save" ing it, my draft folder is empty. Tried this twice... same result.

Second issue: I am trying to convert to Linux. Currently I keep all my Thunderbird stuff on an encrypted disk (Dekart Prvdsk). while I can mount this drive and access this from within applications, PrvDsk will not allow me to copy the files to an unencrypted disk. Is there any way (like a tool) that I can use to export all my folders (everything in "Profiles\2kbxyxpa.default-release\Mail\shastaemail.com," not just the profile?

I have changed Thunderbird E-mail account from IMAP to POP3. My question is, How do I get all my E-mail folders from the IMAP into the new POP3 account. Nothing followed the changed accounts formats.

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 recently bought Windows 11 a Friend loaded 11 and Thunderbird for me! Not all of Thunderbird transfered, I'm missing 8 t0 10 separate folders and all of my Email address! Can you help me! Thanks Danny Dimperio

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.