x



Reading Thunderbird mail between computers

ThunderbirdThis was another note I wrote a while back with the Gaim profile note .

When moving from an old computer to a new computer, alot of profiles get left behind. Some we can afford to lose the baggage and start afresh.

But some, like IM and email, we like to transfer the data from an old computer to a new computer. You may need to read and reply to mails already downloaded on the old computer.

Instead of copying the mail folder everytime, what you could do is to put the mail data on a portable diskdrive. This way you could carry it around and read it at home and in office.

I do not use Thunderbird in this way anymore (using GMail) but this should still work (For the 1.0.x version at least)

It is really quite simple. On WinXP,

  1. Quit Thunderbird if it is running
  2. Look for Application Data/Thunderbird under C:\Documents and Settings\username
  3. Copy the folder and put it into the portable diskdrive
  4. In the (copied) folder, open the file profile.ini
  5. Change these 2 lines

    IsRelative=1
    Path=/Profiles/somenames

    to

    IsRelative=0
    Path=drive:/full/path/to/profile/

  6. Start Thunderbird and all the former mailboxes will appear. Done!

Popularity: 18%

2 Responses to “Reading Thunderbird mail between computers”



  1. Gravatar Icon 1 stefan

    I use this mainly for backups. My main .thunderbird folder is still in my home directory, but I regularly backup that folder.

  2. Gravatar Icon 2 Ken

    Ah mail backup. I should write about an idea that I use for this. :)

Leave a Reply