Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello My previous computer has crashed. C:/ is not available any more. In my previous computer, I had two hard drives: a C:/-drive (an SSD) where Windows and other software were installed, The second hard drive was a conventional drive (D:/) where I stored all my files, documents, images, and so on. On this d:/ I also had several programs installed including Thunderbird. On that previous computer, I saved and organized my emails into subfolders within Thunderbird.

Is it possible to recover my address book in Thunderbird? Is it possible to find/recover my saved emails? Could they perhaps be saved somewhere on my previous C: or D: drives?

I have an old copy of my C: and D: from 2025 I have also a complete copy of my D: from my old computer.

I have now bought a new computer and installed Thunderbird. I would be very grateful if this could be resolved. Kind regards Anders Quant

I am trying to migrate from Microsoft Outlook 2021 to Mozilla Thunderbird. I have successfully imported the email from a number of different email accounts. I would now like to import the archived emails held in a number of PST files. The import tool would seem to be what is required, but it does not seem to allow me to select the PST files that I wish to import. I am concerned that it will try to import all email messages from my Outlook 2021. Is there a way of restricting it to just individual PST files?

Current official docs explains how to backup and move your profile, it assumes you only have one. I have multiple profiles which means about a 20GB backup but I only want to backup one specific profile (<2GB).

The backup is not for recovery but I need to keep a history records for a specific account which can be accessed through Thunderbird even if the original email account no longer exists.

To backup/copy its recommended to do it for this folder %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\ (about 20 GB)

While all I need is %APPDATA\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default-release\ImapMail\Important_stuff* (2 GB folder and .msf file)

Any better solutions than these?

1. Use a backup method that excludes specific folder and files in backup/copy of
2. Have a completely different installation of Thunderbird that only does the Important_stuff account (Thunderbird portable looks like it might do the job).

I suspect the first version will pick up a lot of unnecessary configuration and other stuff.

The functionality for moving individual folders in a Thunderbird email account to network locations is missing. Similarly, moving the entire mailbox to a network drive does not work correctly. This is needed to free up resources on the local computer. In our case, the 500 GB SSD is occupied by a 350 GB mailbox.

Ein freundliches Hallo an alle hier, wie kann ich einen kompletten Ordner mit einzelnen e-Mails in den Thinderbird auf meinem Rechner verschieben? Ich hatte einen Ordner in meinem Postfach angelegt und dahin eine bestimmte Gruppe von E-Mails automatisch abgelegt. Jetzt möchte ich den ganzen Ordner in Thunderbird verschieben, um diese Mails zu archivieren und gleichzeitig mein Postfach aufräumen und Platz schaffen. Vielen Dank für sachdienliche Hinweise. Gruß Wolfgang

/storage/emulated/0/Download/takeout-20260225T235023Z-14-001 (1)/Takeout/Mail/All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox

I have several MBOX files with me and I want to import MBOX files into the Thunderbird email client. I've come across different methods, including manual techniques and third-party tools, but I'm unsure which approach is the most efficient, especially when dealing with multiple or large-sized MBOX files. Some methods also seem complicated for users who are not very technical.

Suggest me any reliable tool for this!

I have read the question posed by a member wanting to do a similar move to the one I want to make and the standardised method that Mozilla publishes. My worry is :- If I download the latest TB program onto my new Win 11 PC, will it be compatible enough to receive all the files and emails I've saved to an external HDD, from my Win 7 PC? As I got burnt by eMClient's transfer of my emails, two years ago and lost 5 years of emails/contacts, I am naturally anxious about this same procedure in TB. (I transferred to TB, because of this and am very pleased with the way it is working on my Win 7 PC) Any hints and tips from anyone would be very gratefully received. John

Meine Festplatte ging kaputt. Auf der neuen Festplatte können meine in den dortigen lokalen Ordnern abgespeicherten emails nicht mehr gelesen werden. Ich weiß, dass diese noch irgendwo vorhanden sind. Wie komme ich wieder an diese?

I am transferring thunderbird to a new computer. I copied the Thunderbird profile from the old computer to the new computer but most of the old messages are not showing up. I uninstalled thunderbird from the new computer and reinstalled it and again copied the old profile but still the old messages are not there. How can I get them on the new computer?

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 swap computers about 3 times in year, and not all of mine emails seen to have transfer. I was wondering if there is any way I could potentially recuperate those emails.

dear support, plese help me, i accidentally remove message data when i want to move email to another laptop. usually if mesage data in local D, the checkbox will greyed but it grey and checked what should i do. i already use recovery software but inbox & sent file won't recover, only archive like 2025 & 2025.msf and it can't be oppened, message still empty although capacity of that file 3GB. any help will really appreciate.

I've been using Thunderbird for several years, but I still don't quite understand how it works. A week ago or so I was unable to add attachments to email and it was suggested to me that I should reinstall Thunderbird, and the claim was made that I would lose neither my email nor the settings. So I did reinstall Thunderbird and found out that all my Local Folders were gone and that I had to configure all my email accounts from scratch, which I did.

Since I regularly back up my home directory using the Ubuntu Backups app, I thought I could restore my Thunderbird data from a recent back-up. Following some advice I'd found on the internet, I restored the ~/.thunderbird directory from a recent backup and saved it at the desktop. Then I replaced the current ~/.thunderbird directory with the one restored from the back-up (cp -r ~/Desktop/.thunderbird/ ~/). When I re-launched Thunderbird, I noticed the following: (1) All the Local Folders that I had created in 2024 and before were restored, but not the more recent ones (i.e, the ones created in 2025 and 2026). (2) The restored Local Folders did not contain any emails dated after early September 2024, which I think is the time when I upgraded Ubuntu 22.04 to Ubuntu 24.04. Looking at the restored profile directory (~/Desktop/.thunderbird/cvb2eouj.default-release/Mail/Local\ Folders), I see that the missing Local Folders are not there, which makes me believe that the problem happened at the stage of making a back-up of my home directory rather than during the restoration process. Is it possible that the location of Thunderbird data moved from ~/.thunderbird elsewhere at the time when the transition to the snap version of Thunderbird took place in Ubuntu 24.04? If so, what is the new location? Knowing the names of some of the missing Local Folders, I have tried to search for them in my home directory, but found none (find /home/<user name>/ -name <name of a missing Local Folder> -print).

I also wonder whether I could use backup data that were created at the time when I uninstalled whatever version of Thunderbird I had prior to clean installation of Thunderbird 157.0. I recall that uninstallation took a lot of time because a back-up was being created (sudo snap remove thunderbird). I have no idea where that back-up was saved, however.

So now I have Thunderbird 157.0 installed and configured on Ubuntu 26.04, I can send and receive e-mail in all my accounts, but Local Folders created after September 2024 are missing, and the ones that exist contain only relatively old emails (older than September 2024).

I would appreciate help and ideas on how to restore the missing Local Directories and emails from home directory backups.

I use POP. I download and keep all my messages received and sent, and have the server delete after a set period. However after installing Thunderbird I've noticed my sent folder is only 6 months old. It should be 15 years! What has Thunderbird done with my messages and can I get them back?

I changed POP3 email password to an app password and Thunderbird would not recognize it even though I updated in Security. I was told to delete the Thunderbird account then set it back up which I did--I did not check the box to delete files. Finally the new account was able to bring in new emails (POP3) but the old folders/emails are not there.

I read that I should go to %appdata%, roaming, Thunderbird but the dates are from years ago--do I go further to find my data or is there another path or something else I should do?

Unless they were backed up somewhere within Thunderbird, I don't think I have any backup.

Can you please help? Thank you.

Hello,

Is there a method to export my emails in EML format instead of Mbox without using third-party software? Are there any settings in the configuration editor that could change the default Mbox format?

Thank you

Hi, I am trying to import all my emails from Yahoo to GMX and would appreciate your guidance on how to successfully complete this process. I have an existing account with both Yahoo and GMX. I have attempted to use the GMX import feature but have encountered some issues. It would be helpful to understand if there are specific steps or settings I need to follow to ensure a smooth transfer of my emails. Additionally, if there are any limitations or troubleshooting tips that I should be aware of, I would love to hear them. Thank you for your assistance.