Thunderbird Community Forum

Hi everyone - and big thanks in advance for considering my request: I have/ had windows 11 on my old machine and windows 11 on my new machine; because my 'old computer' is not running anymore at all (liquid damage), I can no longer start Thunderbird and follow the 'export tool function' (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-export) and thus can only do the manual transfer (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer); I didn't think that I would need to go through the export tool steps when I saved the Thunderbird profile folder regularly as backup on the cloud; yet when I started Thunderbird on my new machine following the above steps by moving the Thunderbird profile folder manually, the result is that - although Thunderbird is 'running' and the mailbox is functioning properly - the key folders are empty (i.e. the sub-folder structure is completely lost, in fact there are no individual emails at all); the issue seems to be that the size of the Thunderbird profile folder is too large (the "Profiles" folder has a size of 20.5 GB) for doing this transfer via copy & paste of the Thunderbird profile folder from the cloud (I also tried USB) to the new machine; I understand that the size issue via the manual transfer could be 'overcome' just by starting Thunderbird on the 'old machine' and following the above steps explained under mozilla support; yet that's no longer an option; what could I do please?

I recently upgraded my older PC from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Thunderbird worked fine for a few days following the upgrade, but when I went into it today, all the local folders were gone. 4GB worth of e-mails. Good thing I backed up four days ago, so I haven't lost much.

I have searched through the help given earlier for a similar problem, but can't seem to still get Thunderbird to work properly. Furthermore, Thunderbird won't import the backed-up data. I also can't get the menu bar to show along the top. What all am I doing wrong?

I gave up on Outlook after a zillion years using it. When I reset my O/S (win11) I had to reinstall Outlook from Office, all paid up and legal. Nothing but problems trying to get my backed up PST file from previous Outlook. System kept trying to get me to subscribe to Windows 365 crap. I had standalone 2024 version of office. When I installed Thunderbird (I have it on laptops and other computers), I entered my email and voila, in about 1 minute I was sending and receiving emails. I had spent 6 hours on Outlook, even using AI (Copilot) to help me. I was SO IMPRESSED, that for once I donated to Thunderbird, $30 CAD.

Now, I used Mailstore to get my pst file, something I could NOT GET OUTLOOK to do, and have it available to export to Thunderbird, or for TBird to IMPORT from the pst. Neither one worked, telling me that TBird didn't have a profile for the transfer, or some such notation.

Any help would be appreciated. Like many of you, my whole communication life is in those emails (I have about 40 folders where I saved stuff).