Importing emails (Thunderbird to Thunderbird) from and old computer

What's the version of the old Thunderbird? Maybe you can install that old version on your new computer and gradually update to the newest version. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrading-older-version-thunderbird

And then you can migrate the profile: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-import

Thanks. However the newer of thew 2 computers has been used for the past 6 years so there are a lot of emails on it. What I'm trying to do is just extract emails from the older version of Thunderbird. I don't want to use the old profile except to get the emails from it. The old version of Thunderbird was 60..... but I was prompted to update it to 68.12.1 (32 bit). Now I see it's asking me to update to 78.14.0

I was trying to keep the computer from connecting to the internet even though I have disabled the accounts from trying to get new messages. The reason being that I don't want to lose the messages that I do have as I know that many of them are no longer on the imap server.. Does all this make sense?

You can use the ImportExportTools NG add-on to transfer your messages from the old to the new computer. The general steps are outlined in this article. https://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders

Please note, the article hasn't been updated for quite a while. You'll have to use the latest version of the add-on which can be found here. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools-ng/

Note, the current ImportExportTools NG add-on may not have all the functionality the old ImportExportTools once had.

And there are some caveats, regardless of which transfer method you're going to use.

• When connectiong to an IMAP server isn't an option, you can only transfer messages from the old computer, when they are already available for offline use. If they haven't been downloaded for offline use yet, then there is nothing there you can transfer.
• You can not import the folders into an IMAP account on the new computer directly. You'll have to import them into the Local Folders account first, though you could move the folders to the IMAP server afterwards.

The version of Thunderbird on my old computer doesn't seem to allow the adding of importexport ng. Therefore I copied the profile using File Explorer but it isn't clear how to use importexport ng on the newer computer to select just emails from the old profile

You can install multiple Thunderbird on your new computer and try to use importexport ng on the new installation locally/offline. I think this will not cause data loss. After it works, you can try it in your normal Thunderbird installation (the currently used one).

Thank you for the suggestion. As it's late tonight I'll try it in the morning & let you know if it's successful

You should be able to copy the mbox files into the local folders account in the file system (outside Thunderbird). No need for the add-on.

Thanks Rick. Looking at the newer of the 2 computers, I can't find any MBOX files. I've looked in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ProfileName.default-release\ImapMail and all I can find are .sbd files which are the folders where I file my emails. My older computer takes forever to start up & at the moment I couldn't tell you what it is doing.

To wixe, thanks for your suggestion also. I'\not sure what you are asking me to do though. Do you mean to install another copy of Thunderbird on the newer computer, then copy the profile from the old computer and use this profile with the 2nd copy of Thunderbird?

Do you mean to install another copy of Thunderbird on the newer computer, then copy the profile from the old computer and use this profile with the 2nd copy of Thunderbird?

Yes, Your understanding is right. If it was my case, I would like to try to recover the emails from its original state in the new computer. Please do it off-line. If it works, you can update Thunderbird to a newer version.

Thanks Rick. Looking at the newer of the 2 computers, I can't find any MBOX files. I've looked in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ProfileName.default-release\ImapMail and all I can find are .sbd files which are the folders where I file my emails. My older computer takes forever to start up & at the moment I couldn't tell you what it is doing.

You are looking on the newer computer and you are referring to your folders and your older computer. We are interested in your wife's profile either on her older computer or wherever you put the copy of her profile that you made. Where is the copy of her profile? That's what we should work from.

What is the state of Thunderbird on her new computer? Is it installed? Have you set up her account? Is everything working?

Wherever the copy of your wife's old profile is, it should have pairs of files with the same name. One has an .msf extension; the other has no extension. The files without an extension are the mbox files.

Once you find the mbox files, close Thunderbird on your wife's new computer, copy the files to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ProfileName.default-release\Mail\Local Folders on the your wife's new computer, start Thunderbird on the that computer, and the messages should appear in the local folders account.

christ1's point about having the messages available for off-line use if they are in an IMAP account is important. If you use this approach, you must make sure that all the messages are downloaded into Thunderbird on your wife's old computer before anything else.

Thanks to both Rick & wixe for getting back to me. I understand a bit more now about how Thunderbird works. I always seem to be starting this late at night and as it's now 11:30pm I would like to map out exactly what I'll do & try again in the morning when I'm fresh. To everyone who has offered advice so far, thank you very much & i will post when I get it working. My wife is paranoid about losing emails, or any data for that matter so I can see that I'll have to install a second version of Thunderbird on my own computer then copy the profiles to that copy to make sure that it works properly.

. I always seem to be starting this late at night and as it's now 11:30pm I would like to map out exactly what I'll do & try again in the morning when I'm fresh.

I would suggest answering the questions also of you with regard to the old version of Thunderbird being used. There are versions of the import export tools going back to at least V2 of Thunderbird so I think getting the correct version of the addon for the historical data move is the best approach.

That someone has to explain that Thunderbird does not use file with an MBOX extension leaves me thinking you should not be copying raw files. There is far to much risk of error unless you are particularly familiar with the windows file manager on whatever versions of Windows they use.

You specifically refer to theImportExportTools NG addon. This was introduced by Christopher Leidigh as a replacement for the much earlier and long running ImportExportTools by Paolo "Kaosmos"

now the NG version (which stand for New Guy) supports versions of Thunderbird back to V60 if you install the correct version of the addon. The original addon on the website has addon versions That work with Thunderbird version 14 to version 60, and offered significant information on his web site for the addon here https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/importexporttools-en.html

So can we back up to where you tell folk what version of Thunderbird you need the import export tools for (you wifes old computer check the help menu > about to get the Thunderbird version installed there.) so folk can work with you to install the correct import export tools addon version for you to export her mail to mbox files so it can be imported into your newer device and merges eventually with the existing mail.