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email account passwords after migration

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Machba
Machba
dalše nastajenja

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)

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)

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david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
dalše nastajenja

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:

  1. click help>troubleshootinginformation
  2. scroll to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
  3. exit thunderbird - IMPORTANT
  4. you are now in the profile folder. copy ALL of it and save to external media
  5. install thunderbird on new PC, if not already done
  6. click help>troubleshootinginformation
  7. scroll to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
  8. exit thunderbird
  9. you are in the profile. Paste what you copied here ########
  10. restart thunderbird
Machba
Machba Prašer
dalše nastajenja

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.

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