How to Transfer Thunderbird Settings and Email on a Windows PC

Thunderbird is a cross-platform email client that has a reputation for being stable, secure and highly customizable. With advanced spam filtering that actually works, Thunderbird was developed by the same people who created the secure Firefox browser. One drawback of this program, however, is that while other email programs allow you to export your settings, accounts and email, Thunderbird doesn't have an easy tool to help you move to a new environment. Instead, you have to move the contents of a folder over to your new computer. Here are steps to doing it.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer running Windows Vista, XP or 2000 (the "new" and the "old")
• Thunderbird
• Any type of removable storage (USB Thumb Drive, CD-R, Flash/SD/etc.), crossover cable or a good home network for transfer

1. Start up Thunderbird on the computer you've been using.

2. Delete all the items from your Trash and Junk folders for each account you have in Thunderbird. This will cut down the size of the files and speed up the transfer.

3. Close Thunderbird.

4. 
    

   Find the Default Thunderbird Profiles folder on the "old" computer. On Windows XP/2000 this file is located in your root directory (C drive) under Documents and Settings. Select your Username and go to the "Application Data" directory. The file will be in the "Profiles" folder of the Thunderbird directory in the "Application Data" folder (C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\). On Vista, the file is located here: C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\.

5. 
    

   Locate your Default Thunderbird Profile folder named "XXXXXX.default" where the X's are a random mix of numbers and letters.

6. 
    

   Copy the files in "XXXXXX.default" directly to the "new" computer over the network, or you can use a removable storage device such as a USB thumb drive or CD-R. Don't copy over the directory named "XXXXXXX.default", but just copy the files in the directory.

7. Download, install and run Thunderbird on the "new" computer. A new Default Profile is created when you run Thunderbird for the first time.

8. Shut down Thunderbird.

9. Move the files you copied from the Default folder of the "old" computer to the Default Thunderbird Profile folder ("XXXXXX.default") on the new computer. Again, you're moving the actual files in the old "XXXXXX.default" folder.

10. Launch Thunderbird on the "new" computer. Your old settings and emails should be available on this new installation.

Resources

• Download Mozilla Thunderbird

[magicbrook]

on 9/12/2009 Nothing that I have ever read, through windows to windows, windows to mac, mac to mac has ever worked. I just tried this, making sure that all permissions were correct at the OS level, and NO Thunderbird does NOT see my mail folders.

My empirical evidence suggests that the transfer must be done this way:

-- recreate all the accounts (I have many! and maybe that's the diff? this assumes but one email account?)
-- move only the mail folders, not the index folders (and all the ancillary thunderbird folders for various settings)
-- compact all folders - wait while thunderbird redoes all the indexes.

UGH! there has to be a way to just get thunderbird to read in the old data. But I have NEVER found it

[mamashan]

on 5/20/2009 The App Data folder will more than likely be hidden on Vista. Here's what to do if you can't find it--Go to C:\users\[User Name and select your username folder, then go to the top menu item "Tools" and choose "Folder Options" When that opens click on the "View" tab. About 7 items down in the view pane is "Hidden files and folders" Check the radio button "Show hidden files and folders" Click apply and ok, now you'll see the App Data folder.

[burnmatt]

on 2/5/2009 ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW

This method does work however, somtimes the first time you copy over all the old profile files into the new profile folder (replacing all the new files with old ones) you can loose all your rules and folder settings for some reason.

Best thing to do if your rules and folders are missing is to delete everything in the new folder and try to copy in the old files again (for some reason the prefs.js document can get cleared randomly, and somtimes when its transfered it remains intact, so keep trying it)

Just keep trying and it should work,even if you have to erase it all and copy it all over a few times. IT DID FOR ME!

[theflagsofdawn]

on 1/6/2009 This is my own stupidity, but a caution to all. I told the computer to replace all files when I transferred from my old computer Thunderbird profile to the new one. Make sure it does not replace your inbox. Lost about 13 emails, although none were important, thankfully.

Perhaps best not to download new messages until you have your old ones transferred.

[ChiakiTypeO]

on 1/3/2009 I'm sure rogerdn has figured this out already, but the "xxxxx.default" files from the old computer go into the "yyyyy.default" (ie. different set of letters/numbers) folder on the new computer, which gets created when you run Thunderbird for the first time on the new computer.

Thanks, this tip worked great for me! I would especially highlight that under Windows Vista, the location of the profile data is:
C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\[b]Roaming[/b]\Thunderbird\Profiles\
... emphasis on the "Roaming". I say this because there is a Thunderbird\Profiles\ directory under AppData\Local as well, but this folder does NOT work as a place to copy your old Thunderbird data to (it appears to just ignore it).

Hopefully Mozilla will add a "migration assistant" or similar feature in a future version to avoid this hassle, but in the mean, thanks for the great tip!