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Migrating Thunderbird from Mac to Windows

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  • 2 sa na da wannan matsala
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  • Amsa ta ƙarshe daga Andrew Janke

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke
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What's the right way to migrate a Thunderbird profile from a Mac to Windows 10, in a way that preserves multiple email accounts and identities?

I use Thunderbird 60.6.1 on macOS 10.14. I have 9 email accounts with about 20 email identities between them. I would like to copy all these to a Thunderbird profile in a Windows 10 VM that I'm running on the same machine under VMware, so that I can access all my email accounts in Thunderbird under both OSes. How can I do this?

I have tried copying the contents of my ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<whatever>.default profile directory over to the %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Local/Thunderbird/Profiles/<whatever>.default on the Windows VM. It kind of works, in that mail appears there and I can log in to my mail server, but only 1 of my 9 email accounts shows up on the receiving end.

I have tried doing the transfer both with a .zip file of my profile that I transferred over using Dropbox and VMware shared folders, and a FAT-formatted USB drive that I first attached to the Mac side and then the Windows side. When I did the zip file, I got a couple errors when extracting it. No errors when copying the profile over using the USB drive. But same results with both procedures: only one (my primary) email account shows up on the receiving Windows side.

Any ideas?

What's the right way to migrate a Thunderbird profile from a Mac to Windows 10, in a way that preserves multiple email accounts and identities? I use Thunderbird 60.6.1 on macOS 10.14. I have 9 email accounts with about 20 email identities between them. I would like to copy all these to a Thunderbird profile in a Windows 10 VM that I'm running on the same machine under VMware, so that I can access all my email accounts in Thunderbird under both OSes. How can I do this? I have tried copying the contents of my ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<whatever>.default profile directory over to the %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Local/Thunderbird/Profiles/<whatever>.default on the Windows VM. It kind of works, in that mail appears there and I can log in to my mail server, but only 1 of my 9 email accounts shows up on the receiving end. I have tried doing the transfer both with a .zip file of my profile that I transferred over using Dropbox and VMware shared folders, and a FAT-formatted USB drive that I first attached to the Mac side and then the Windows side. When I did the zip file, I got a couple errors when extracting it. No errors when copying the profile over using the USB drive. But same results with both procedures: only one (my primary) email account shows up on the receiving Windows side. Any ideas?

Mafitar da aka zaɓa

First, you're copying into the wrong location in Windows. It should be .../AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/... To make it simpler, copy the ~/Library/Thunderbird folder from the Mac to .../AppData/Roaming on Windows, replacing whatever Thunderbird folder that may already exist. Make sure TB is closed when you do the copying on the Mac and pasting on the PC.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer

Once you have the Thunderbird folder in the right place in Windows, open the profile folder, <whatever>.default, and delete pkcs11.txt to allow TB to read the passwords for the accounts (it's because of a path-naming difference between OS X and Windows).

Karanta wannan amsa a matsayinta 👍 1

All Replies (2)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Zaɓi Mafita

First, you're copying into the wrong location in Windows. It should be .../AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/... To make it simpler, copy the ~/Library/Thunderbird folder from the Mac to .../AppData/Roaming on Windows, replacing whatever Thunderbird folder that may already exist. Make sure TB is closed when you do the copying on the Mac and pasting on the PC.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer

Once you have the Thunderbird folder in the right place in Windows, open the profile folder, <whatever>.default, and delete pkcs11.txt to allow TB to read the passwords for the accounts (it's because of a path-naming difference between OS X and Windows).

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke Mai mallakar tambaya
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Bingo. Thank you!