email account passwords after migration
I migrated my Thunderbird installation to a new computer. The installation has 25 email accounts and is now requiring passwords be entered for each account including a couple of gmail accounts.
It was my understanding passwords would be migrated when using the export/import tool within Thunderbird. Is this not so?
Do I now need to change passwords for all email accounts? (because, of course these may have been written down years ago but cannot be located at this time. :-( ) Or, is there some way of restoring the email account passwords?
- side note: The migration was not seamless but mostly due to my own ignorance. When using the export/import tool from one Linux machine to another I found the following:
- Thunderbird versions must be the same on both computers - After export, file on USB drive was only accessible by root on new computer - export zip file needed to be copied to user account on new computer (from within root account) and ownership changed to [user]: -R (I imagine you could just change ownership on the USB but this seemed easier)
All Replies (3)
If you used the tools>export feature to move the profile, all passwords are removed for security. I always suggest using the OS's file copy facility to achieve that when passwords are to be retained: Here are sample steps:
- click help>troubleshootinginformation
- scroll to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
- exit thunderbird - IMPORTANT
- you are now in the profile folder. copy ALL of it and save to external media
- install thunderbird on new PC, if not already done
- click help>troubleshootinginformation
- scroll to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
- exit thunderbird
- you are in the profile. Paste what you copied here ########
- restart thunderbird
Hello David:
Thank you for your reply.
I tried for two days to follow the process outlined in Thunderbird help to copy/paste the profile. Each time when starting Thunderbird after pasting the file into the user's home account on the new computer I received an error message similar to "another instance of Thunderbird is already running, please close or use a different profile." This message would occur when starting Thunderbird even after a fresh boot of the system.
I tried again, this time changing ownership of the file as I had with the import .zip file. (I hadn't tried that previously) This worked. I have all accounts with account passwords intact.
Thank you for your help. One caveat, Thunderbird help suggests "open profile directory and go up two levels". This puts you in home/user directory. (in a Debian based linux distro anyway) This is the location I copied/pasted the .thunderbird file from/to.
If I understand your response, your profile is now working? On your last paragraph, my approach used the profile directly; the suggestion you referenced was using the thunderbird profile, which is a different number of steps.
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