Importing thunderbird to thunderbird
Dear Sirs, throughout the times I have copied Thunderbird working directory to a backup, forming backups named thun1995, thun1996,...,thun2022 to my disk (and backed up to external disk). Now when something strange happened and I lost a lot of Local Folders and messages from current (thun2023) working directory, I simply tried to read and include some of them from older backups. Which I simply can't do and can't either figure out what's needed even after reading endless number of discussions. I tried ImportExportTools NG, browsed to thu2021 and tried to get one of it's folder. No success. Also couldn't import plain messages from any folders. My profile has always been the same, so I can open any of the annual backups while changing it's name to Local Folders->settings->Local Directory, but what I would like to do, e.g. collect my old stuff to current Local Folder, seems to be too complicated for a veteran. Anyone knowing how to do such operation is most welcome to give a hint.
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I have mentioned two methods on how to get 'Local Folders' emails from a backup into the current Thunderbird. The first method is about getting a complete copy of the 'Local Folders' mail account to replace the current 'Local Folders' account. The second is how to use ImportExportTools NG addon to import mbox files from a backup.
If you simply want to replace the current 'Local Folders' mail account with a backup of 'Local Folders' mail account, you can do the following:
- Menu icon > Help > More TRoubleshooting Information
- Under 'Application Basics' half way - Profile Folders - click on 'Open Folder' - see image below as guide.
A new window opens showing the contents of your current profile name folder.
- Exit Thunderbird now - this is important.
- Click on 'Mail' folder to see contents.
You will see the 'Local Folders' folder. If you do not have anything important in the current 'Local Folders' account:
- Move that 'Local Folders' folder to the desktop - you can delete it later when all is completed.
- Leave this window open ready to receive the backup.
Now in a new Explorer window:
- search for the backup called thu2021
- I'm not sure what you saved in thu2021 but you need to locate the profile name folder and click on the 'Mail' folder to see the 'Local Folders' folder.
- Get a copy of that 'Local Folders' folder.
- Go the the other window which shows the contents of the current profile 'Mail' folder.
- Paste the backup of copied 'Local Folders' folder into the 'Mail' folder - thus replacing the one you moved to the desktop.
Start Thunderbird.
Alternative if you only want to import specific files back into Local Folders because you already have some folders you need to keep.
- Right click on 'Local Folders' mail account name in Folder Pane and select 'ImportExportTools NG'
- Select 'Import mbox file'
If you want to only import specific mbox files then select:
- 'Import directly one or more mbox files.
If you had folders that contained subfolders and you need to import the folder and all it's subfolders then select:
- 'Import one or more mbox files with it's/their subdirectory'
- click on 'OK'
A new window opens.
- Browse to the 'thu2021' backup folder.
- In the profile name folder click on 'Mail' folder
- click on 'Local Folders' folder to see contents.
mbox files will have same name as the folder you would see in Thunderbird. mbox files do not have any extension. ignore the files that have a *.msf extension.
- Select an mbox file and click on 'Open'
The mbox file containing emails gets imported into the 'Local Folders' mail account.
As a guide and example image below showing what an mbox file looks like.
