Yonke imikhiqizo Community Forum

To be clear, I seriously doubt the problems I am encountering are TB's fault! The problems may be my fault since I've grown older, I've tended (believed) using new versions of software present my mind a BIGGER challenge than using the older software/version I have been successfully using? I'm still using Version115.10.1

After our ISP chose to start using Zimbra Oct. 7, 2025 and their tech support could not assist me in getting TB working the had me remove POP3 settings for TB and change to IMAP with their software.

FINALLY someone helped me get TB working with IMAP. For 3 days grrr. Now the ISP says I need to use their web mail, Zimbra.

So might downloading the current TB version and somehow get the In box, all the folder contnets etc. over - into the new TB help?

I was going to backup everything tonight, now I have little to NO hope, without help!

THANKS & remain WELL plus be SAFE!

Robin

Hi, I've set up TB successfully on a new PC and been using it a while. Then I noticed my local folders archive group of subfolders was missing. I followed some instructions about moving local folders file across from the old to the new version.

Now I see the individual archive folders without the folder group name 'archive'.

Also, there are a couple of other files not visible on the new platform although they were in the original installation local files and were copied across.

I was careful to ensure the same version running on both PCs. Also that TB was closed when copying files across.

Any pointers appreciated!

Tuesday Oct. 7, our ISP converted to a new e-mail program. I could NOT log in/on I called our ISP's help desk. The 'technician' could not help me log in to our Thunderbird POP 3 account. He had me, WITHOUT asking if I had essential - legal - medical-etc. e-mails in the IN BOX or in folders! He NEVER warned/cautioned all ?would? be lost - GONE.

I URGENTLY need to recover all TB POP3 IN BOX & e-mails in folders. I need to access legal messages today, if possible.

If Mozilla does not have a recovery program, what do I do? I am not seeking to recover ' deleted messages (unless his having me change from the POP3 account to a 'new' IMAP account is the same as ' "delete" '.

Any & all prompt responses APPRECIATED! Remain WELL & Be SAFE!

Robin

Tried exporting profile folder again today. Somehow it was different. When I clicked on exporting it opened the profile folder and there were 2 profiles in there, one from 9-8 and one from 2023. I don’t remember seeing this before.

I clicked on the newer file and told it to export. It started, ran up to 50%, then stopped.

In the upper left corner on my screen, it said “Thunderbird not responding”. I don’t know why. It offered me an option to wait for Tbird to respond, or cancel the action. I opted to cancel even tho it said I might lose data.

When I did it asked me to put in the last dixc of the multi volume set. I have no idea. I’m out of the program now. None of this happened with the 2 exports I did before. And when I cleared the flash drive of yesterday's file, it had ) bytes of data on it. What do I do now? I have a lot of Tbird already set up, just need mailboxes and addresses, I think. Is there a workaround? Can I copy those items from the old desk top and paste them into the new lap top program? Thanks for your suggestions. Stacy

I've been reading how to move my emails to a new computer. There are two users on the old computer, both with Thunderbird. When moving the email profile to the new computer, does it pick up both users, or does this need to be done separately for each individual Thunderbird email account? If so, I assume I need to set up both users on the new computer before starting the Thunderbird move. Also, how can I be absolutely sure I'm dealing with a recent enough email version on the old computer? My Thunderbird updates frequently but the new one seems to be slightly off.

Hi Guys,

How do I export all my emails from Thunderbird to my local HDD?

I know there are a few different methods but which is the best option for me?

I have 21GB of Emails on my Yahoo Mail and I want to download them to my local HDD. Check the attached screenshot.

What is the best option if I want to download everything?

When I have a complete backup of the entire thing I plan to delete them from my Yahoo Mail to clean up some space.

Thanks, Plamen

Hi all, I have a client who uses Thunderbird and wants to close his orange.fr email address, but has thousands of emails he needs to be able to continue to refer to / archive. I advised to move all the emails from the IMAP server/inbox folder, to a Local folder in Thunderbird. Having done this, I tried to remove the account, did NOT check the box “Remove Message Data” and (wrongly assumed) there would still be a way for him to see his orange.fr emails in a local folder somewhere, but they all disappeared. I’ve tried to trace the path for the local folder but can’t see a way to see them once the account is removed. Can any suggest the best way to GUARANTEE that he can close his orange.fr email account and still retain his old emails? I’m guessing that if he closes the account but doesn’t remove it from Thunderbird, the account will retain the local folders but will be unable to connect to the orange.fr email address. I suppose that would be a solution but I’m guessing Thunderbird will throw a connection error every time it opens? is there a neater way? We would prefer to avoid trying to export them to another mail client.

Any suggestions / advice greatfully received. I’m just nervous that he doesn’t lose access to his old emails after closing his orange.fr email account. TIA Russ

I have have had a Gmail address for a few years and have just created a new Gmail address, I am trying to copy about 20,000 emails from the original Gmail IMAP folders to local Thunderbird folders as a backup, and then copy them to the new Gmail address IMAP folders.

I have tried copying these in smaller amounts as suggested (between 200 and 500 at once) This seems to go well, however, when I have completed the task the original folder has a much higher amount of messages in it than the new one, so some messages are being lost along the way.

Is there a reliable method to do this, such as closing Thunderbird and then copying and pasting data held in the profile folder, or does it need to be done with Thunderbird running?

Many Thanks in advance

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?

After backing up a specific email account, and then checking the backup under local folders I only have those backup files under local folders. All of my subfolders in local folders are gone. How do I restore the original local folders? Thanks, Matt

Hello, Some 12-14 years ago my US based website manager signed me up with Thunderbird since he was having issues getting my Outlook to be compatible with his server. It had been relatively trouble free until recently.

When a recent update occured it appeared that Thunderbird had vaporized my e-mails from 2023/24. I had/have numerous e-mails related to a lawsuit that is tremendously important to me. I read on Mozilla's site about a program alled Recoverit from Wondershare. It did not appear to work at all. Not too long after my Lenovo PC died. The techa at Memory Express could only see a single program on my hard drive when I took the hard drive to them for analysis. I subsequently sent the drive to Secure Data

and they are sending it back to me.

In the meantime my replacement computer is an HP laptop. I purchased Windows 365 since they provided a technician to assist with setup. The tech could not get Thunderbird to work nor could they make Outlook work, MS blamed the server. The server guy says ir works, I have been without my e-mail for more than 6 weeks.

Can anyone help?

Hello,

I have a problem with copying emails (a large number of them) from a POP3 account to an IMAP account. I have created both accounts in Thunderbird, but when I select the messages to be copied, a message appears for about a second saying that copying is starting, and then it disappears and no process is started. Sometimes I can copy a small number, for example 100 messages, and other times I can't copy anything. The problem is definitely not with the IMAP server limits.

Please help me find out where the problem might be.

I need to migrate from Outlook 2010 to Thunderbird latest version. There are multiple email accounts configured in Outlook and tons emails. This is my wife's system so I don't want to make a mistake doing the conversion.

I intend to use a automated tool if a reliable on exists - paid is fine. I need to get all of the accounts and associated outlook folders moved to tbird. Also need contacts migrated. Some of the Outlook accounts use POP3/SMTP, some use IMAP.

What is/are the best migration tools? Recommendations welcome. What traps do I need to avoid? What is the recovery process if it all goes wrong.

I have 50+ years IT experience and have used tbird for 10 years so I'm not clueless.

Thanks in advance.

Hi All,

Here are my details: We used Google Vault to export a select number of emails as .mbox files. They were zipped after the download from Google Vault, and I have since extracted the contents. I can see the contents of the emails in Notepad++, but when I try to upload them to Thunderbird via the Account Settings, the newly created folder is empty (this is after a restart).

I've tried using the ImportExportTools NG extension to see if I get different results, but each time the folders are empty.

Anything else I should try? OS: Win10 22H2 19045.6332

My Windows 11 laptop was upgraded (RAM and SSD) last weekend and I'm in the process of restoring it. Before I sent it in to upgrade, I used Norton to create a recovery backup and now have used that backup to populate my C: drive. The apps did not install. I downloaded the Thunderbird app through google chrome and re-created my accounts, but I no longer have the older emails, especially older SENT emails and any of my Archive folders. (I had an Archive of all my Inbox and Sent folders for each year back for years now.)

I have looked through the various support questions on this community forum but I can't figure out how to get my historical emails back.

BTW, I also have complete Norton backups of all my drives, but it is only the C: drive that is in question.

So here is my problem. Why does TB have a "local folder" section, where I can create local folders to store say billing information, or keep receipts for car payments and the like. Then, I purchase a new computer to accommodate Windows 11, (DO NO get me started on that one!) So I reinstall TB, bring up my account, and of course NONE of my local folders are there! I've looked through the "Troubleshooting Help" and the "Open Folders" etc, but you have to talk to me like I'm a 5 year old! I'm not a computer dummy, but I'm not an expert either!

And the instructions don't make sense to me! I want my local folders back. I've spent a good amount of time creating those, and for a good reason. I can refer back to bills, I can help verify what I've paid and when, and I can back up bank statements and on and on! How do I retrieve these? There has to be a way right? Like with Gmail and the like. You should be able to get those items back....and it shouldn't take a bloody genius and com puter whiz to do this! I need a simple explanation as to how to retrieve these folders. Thank you in advance for anyone willing to help me with this problem.

Michael....

Hello I was using Thunderbird on a Windows 7 PC and I want to migrate to a Windows 10 PC. I can't retrieve my emails even though I'm following the transfer procedure between 2 Windows PCs. I copy the 2 directories %appdata local and roaming I should point out that I had changed the message storage location in the server settings to have it on the D: partition, which I back up regularly. When I start Thunderbird, it will obviously search for unread messages on the Orange server, but I cannot find all the history that I had on the source PC. Thank you for your help Daniel

J'utilisais Thunderbird sur un PC Windows7 et je veux migrer sur un pc Windows 10. Je ne parviens pas à récupérer mes mails bien que je suive la procédure de transfert entre 2 PC Windows Je copie les 2 répertoires %appdata local et roaming Je précise que j'avais changé l'emplacement de stockage des messages dans les paramètres du serveur pour l'avoir sur la partition D: que je sauvegarde régulièrement. Quand je lance Thunderbird, il va manifestement rechercher les messages non lus sur le serveur Orange, mais je ne retrouve pas tout l'historique que j'avais sur le PC source. Merci pour votre aide Daniel

I had to upgrade my computer and my "guy" didn't or hasn't given me the information I need to access my Thunderbird email on my new computer. How can I make the transfer?