
Moving Thunderbird Profiles to Onedrive
I have been using Thunderbird since its first incarnation. I currently monitor (some for non-profits, some my own) five email accounts in Thunderbird. They are all IMAP accounts. However, my own main account also has an extensive system of local folders that adds up to about 12GB of data, and probably over 100 folders (don't ask; it was necessary until I retired last year, but I need to keep all of those saved emails, as I still access them frequently).
I've searched the forums and have found good information on moving Tbird to a new computer, but that's not what I'm looking for. Chances are what I need is here, and I've missed it, so please forgive if I'm rehashing old questions.
Currently, my Thunderbird profile and folders are stored on my C: drive, as is the default. I have been manually backing them up several times a week (for years) to OneDrive, because I can't afford to lose everything if my laptop decides to bite the dust. Using that method, I've successfully moved the setup to a new computer several times. I'm not sure why simply redirecting the setup to a different location on the same system has been a bugbear for me. ::smile::
It would be much less labor-intensive if I can simply point Thunderbird to the OneDrive files so they are always up-to-date and "there," should I need to make a computer change again.
Note, that I am not looking to access the Tbird installation with multiple computers.
I have tried (and failed) to do this in the past. Either my emails are not there, my address books are missing, or a variety of other issues that indicate an incomplete move.
I'm ready to give it another shot, and I appreciate your time and help.
All Replies (5)
If I understand your issue, here is a simple approach: - exit thunderbird - in windows file explorer, copy the profile to a onedrive folder - in c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles.ini, change the pointer from the c:\location to the new location - restart thunderbird - if you get error that profile can't be found, that indicates an error in the profiles.ini. easy fix. - once satisfied, the profile folder on c can be removed.
Remember: in future, when moving to new computer, copy the appdata\roaming\thunerderbird folder as well as the one-drive folder to avoid needing to do again.
Thank you for the quick reply, David. I'll give this a shot later today. I appreciate the help.
A couple of questions, just because if something can be fouled up, I'm the one to do it. 😉
When you say to copy the profile folder in explorer, you mean "just" the profile folder, and not the whole \thunderbird directory, yes?
When I change the pointer in profiles.ini, I will be changing the path to the full "C:\Users\myusername\OneDrive\newfolder\myprofile" designation. Correct?
Thanks again.
The profile itself is all that matters. the current profiles.ini setting points explicitly to it. Copying the full thunderbird folder isn't needed and will likely confuse you in the future. Yes, that will be the new setting. Feel free to rename the profile to whatever you desire. That default name from thunderbird is not important.
Be aware that OneDrive itself is a backup.