First, the profile encompasses everything (thunderbird settings, account setting, messages and addressbooks). You sorta' shot yourself in the foot by bypassing the import. Assuming your accounts are POP, you now have messages in two places, the messages prior to the switch on one PC and newer ones on newer PC. But, if POP accounts are set to leave messages on server for a period greater than the transition period, then you could safely import the profile with nothing lost. If there are messages no longer on server or new messages sent, then you will need to manually configure the message folders. Tell us which is the issue, and will try to give suggestions.

If the accounts are IMAP, I suggest importing the addressbooks should suffice, which you can do at tools>import>import from a file>import addressbooks>SQlite database and select from within the old profile (you would need to unzip the profile to do that).

David,

Yes I should have used the Export-Import tools before creating the accounts on the new laptop.

On the old laptop, the primary account is POP. I added accounts 2&3 later as IMAP accounts. The POP account setting is "Leave on server->until I delete them. I checked the primary account web mail on comcast.net and all the old mail is gone. I cleaned out a lot of old mail on the old laptop to make the zip file as small as possible.

On the new laptop, I had created all three accounts as IMAP. Those accounts have a small collection of mail in their Inboxes going back to mid 2022 (which is weird) but of course none of the folders I created on the old laptop.

Should I try the Import tool on the new laptop? Will that import all the folders I exported from the old laptop?

David, On the IMAP account settings, I do not see a setting for saving or deleting mail from the server. What controls that? I found a help file called Automatic Account Configuration that stated that IMAP is more modern and allows me to keep mail on both the server and local machine. That sounds like I would need to open webmail occasionally and manually delete old mail. That looks safer than POP mail where I might not realize that deleting local mail also may delete the same mail on the server.

Yours, Michael F

If all accounts are IMAP and you are content with what email is there, then all I recommend is importing the addressbook. If you had folders in Local Folders, the easiest approach is to exit thunderbird, use Windows File Explorer to locate the folders under old profile (they would be in the Mail\Local Folders folder) and copy them to same location on new profile.

In IMAP, whenever you delete a message, it deletes from server. This is because IMAP deals directly with the server. Messages are downloaded for access, but IMAP keeps in sync and will delete local messages that are not online.

David,

Thanks for your guidance.

The import worked and all my accounts, address books, and calendar were installed on the new laptop. My primary account imported as a POP account so I changed the setting to "leave mail on the server." The local folders carried over as a subfolder of Local Folders but I see that I can drag them up a level one at a time.

One odd thing is that the three account folders and Local Folders now appear in alphabetical order with my primary account at the bottom. Wait, I just opened Account Settings and found that I could slide the entry for the primary account to the top of the list on the left side. Pretty slick!

Once I'm satisfied with Thunderbird on the new laptop, do I dare delete the accounts from the old laptop?

Yours, Michael F.

I'm glad all is working. Be sure to do a profile backup, either with Tools>export or with the importexport utility. I never delete until I have backups.