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

Hi, Forums - I am a new Thunderbird user based on on-line research suggesting Thunderbird as the best way to relieve gmail account with local mailbox archiving. My gmail is out of storage by end of the month and my plan was to move a bunch of old messages into local Thunderbird mailbox to clear room in the google account. I have set up Thunderbird successfully with gmail using IMAP connectivity option. Thunderbird shows same folder structure as labels in gmail and displays all messages from the oldest to newest. So then I tried the "archiving" by setting up a folder structure under Thunderbird's Local Folders. Specifically, to start with I I set up Inbox_archive and Sent_archive and used right click Move To > Local Folders > Folder name to move old messages from live ...@gmail.com tree to Local Folder tree. Since there is also an option Copy To, my understanding was that Move should be different from Copy by also removing messages from gmail and move them to Local folders. At a first glance these steps seemed to work. I see unique old messages in Thuderbird Local Folders. I don't see these messages in Thunderbird's gmail inbox/sent and I also don't see these messages when I search in on-line gmail in:inbox and in:sent. I noticed, however, that google storage size didn't budge. I moved a thousand of more messages in the same way (thinking maybe older messages were just small) and the storage still didn't decrease. I then looked around in on-line gmail and found the messages that I presumed "archived" still sitting in gmail's All Mail. This explains why the storage size didn't change. I searched on the forum and on-line and can't get a confident answer on what am I missing to actually remove the messages from gmail - ideally in the most straightforward manner in one action as a cut and paste from on-line to local folders. Are there any IMAP/account settings that I should have so that Thunderbird's "Move to" actually removes messages from on-line account? Or is there a different archiving command/strategy I need to use?

I am hesitant to do any more trial and error on my own since I already messed up my gmail by having now thousands of messages still sitting in All Mail without proper Inbox and Sent tags and, thus, would appreciate the recommendation from someone who is familiar with my use case.

Thank you.

Hi,

I need some help! Thunderbird used to have archive settings in which I could choose to save my e-mails locally in my archive folders with 1 file per 1 email and not everything that's in a folder saved to a single file.

How can I get this back? Is there some hidden settings that can be accessed to get it done?

I need every email in one file! I'm going nuts trying to sort years of e-mail duplicates. If I can have a file per message, then I can at least use my PC duplicate file program to compare file content and find the similar ones. But with everything of one folder in the same archive file I'll be cursed to have to manually go through thousands of e-mails by hand! So if there is a way to return the previous archive format (*wdseml files??, it seems?) then I want to know how to set that setting.

Alternatively a local folder duplicate e-mail cleaning tool? There used to be some but I couldn't get it to work now!

I have an existing Tbird account for my Gmail emails. Have set up a new Tbird account for my Outlook email account. Would like to move all emails, including folders and subfolders, to my new Outlook Tbird account (with the intent of closing my Gmail account altogether).

Would appreciate learning the steps to ensure the emails, folders, and subfolders are moved from Tbird Gmail account to Tbird Outlook account

Hi! I am trying to use the Thunderbird application to help me view a huge '.mbox' file from an email account that is no longer active. I have the entire file saved to my computer as I downloaded it before the account was closed. Can you help me access those files? I am working on a huge project and really need to look for date sand times of emails sent in the mailbox so that i can piece together the timeline of the project. I would greatly appreciate this!!!

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.

Having been using Thunderbird for over 25 years, I have some folders with very old mail which I am unlikely to ever want to access, but don't want to throw away. And, I am in a space crunch. Would it be reasonable to zip the contents of appropriate mail folders, store those elsewhere, then clear out the folder. Then, I could unzip to restore if needed.

Ideas?

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

I have 5 email accounts stored in drive I: and 3 in drive C:, with multiple profiles (in I:(...)\Roaming\Thunderbird and \Local\Thunderbird AND the same in C:). (Windows 10). I need to move to a new PC (Windows 11), where drives are named C: and D:. I tried to use the Import/export function, but the accounts previously in I: don't appear (only the basic account shows, no inbox/sent, etc. and no data). I manually changed one of them to C: and then import again only the data. That was not possible for all the accounts and many emails (90%) are missing, also from the account were it "worked". I can find some emails in folders at the bottom of the account list, but many emails are yet missing, and received/sent not clearly defined. NB: on Windows 10 I have the latest esr version, on Windows 11 the latest NOT esr version.

So I tried to manually transfer the archives, but when copying from \Local\Thunderbird to an USB for the transfer, many files (more then 40k) went missing due to errors of copying.

What can I try?

Hello, I apologize, I am uncertain if this is the appropriate place to post this topic. I am having significant difficulty with the forum system when we require assistance.

I have been using Thunderbird for over a year now, and I have wanted to stop using it since the first month of use. Several times a month, I am unable to send messages even though I haven't made any changes. The message keeps popping up: “The message failed to send. The message could not be sent because the connection to the outgoing server (SMTP) ”server name" failed. The server may be unavailable or refusing SMTP connections. Please check that your outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again."

This is supposed to be my work email. I understand that ThunderBird is a volunteer platform. And that you do what you can, but I can't afford to be stuck like this for a “yes” or a “no.” You were highly recommended to me by my website host, and I regret it. I am no longer in contact with that person, so I can no longer get the assistance I needed several times a month to get the mailbox up and running again. However, I continue to receive mail at that address.

Is there a way to automatically transfer emails from ThunderBird to Proton Mail? If so, how do I do that, please?

Thank you.

Hello! I have a bit of a long story but hopefully this won't take too much of your time. I have a windows 11 pc that came with a realtively small ssd. I installed thunderbird and used it for many months. then i cloned this ssd to a new higher capacity ssd and installed the new ssd into my pc. i continued with thunderbird and my new ssd for roughtly 3 months but i found that the new ssd was glitching and was giving me problems.

about two weeks ago i removed the cloned high-capacity ssd which had the three months of new emails and i reinstalled the old original ssd into my pc and have continued with thunderbird. i also installed the glitchy high-capacity ssd into a docking station and i have it connected to my pc as an external drive. So my problem is that while my pc has all my original thunderbird emails, it is missing the three months of emails that are on the cloned high-capacity ssd. And to further complicate things, i have been using my reinstalled old ssd for two weeks and have accumulated new thunderbird emails.

how can i copy or import the three months of thunderbird emails that are on my high capacity ssd that is attached to the computer now as an external drive. Remember that not only does that high capacity drive have three months of emails that I need, it also has all my original thunderbird emails that it obtained through the cloning process. so my concern is that whatever import process i might do, it is either going to cause a lot of duplication of the old emails or it is going to wipe out or disturb the most recent activity (my last two weeks) when one profile is replaced entire replaces another.

MY QUESTION: is there a way to selectively import just the last three months of my thunderbird emails from the high capacity ssd that is connected currently as an external drive? I know the specfic date range that i am looking for.

thanks eric

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

I had a desktop drive fail. While it was out for recovery I started using a different computer. About 5 weeks later, I now that I have the restored drive and its data from which I can restore the original profile with its address book, messages, and folder hierarchy. Will it possible to now import /combine the the email history from the second profile?

After reinstalling Sonoma (before I had Sequoia) and Thunderbird on my MacBook Air, I cannot find any emails from April 2023 to January 2026. I use the POP option in Thunderbird for my main accounts (the two from GMX). I have tried various solutions and requested support, but nothing has helped. What can I do?