I got a new notebook after my last laptop, HP Pavilion, was gone due to some heating problems. While moving all data, I was not sure whether to continue with Thunderbird, since I heard that Mozilla stopped Thunderbird development.
There was a free built-in alternative mail software in Windows 8, but it was not supporting POP email.
So for the time being, I decided to continue with Thunderbird but needed to move Thunderbird profile to the new PC.
How do I move Thunderbird profile to a new computer?
Moving your profile data to a new PC is easy. I will outline the basic steps here, but you can find the official Mozilla documentation here, in case you need a more detailed guide.
Step by Step Migrating Your Thunderbird Data
- Copying Your Profile Data From old computer
- Close the Thunderbird
- Go to the directory where your profile data exists
- For Windows XP; “C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\”
- For Vista, Windows 7; C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Thuderbird\Profiles\
- Copy the Profile Directory
- Paste the Profile Directory to the new computer
- Install Thunderbird
- Open it once so it set up all the folders and data
- Now Close Thunderbird
- Go to the directory where your profile data exists
- For Windows XP; “C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\”
- For Vista, Windows 7; “C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Thuderbird\Profiles\”
- Delete the existing profile directory
- Paste the Profile directory from the first step
- Change your INI file to the new profile
- Go to the directory where your profile INI file exists
- For Windows XP; “C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Thunderbird\”
- For Vista, Windows 7; “C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Thuderbird\”
- Open “profiles.ini” in your favourite text editor
- Find the the “Path=Profiles/XXXXXXXX.default”
- Change XXXXXXXX with your profile directory name from first step
- Go to the directory where your profile INI file exists
- Start Tunderbird
You should now see all your email accounts and emails as you would on your previous computer.
Migrating Thunderbird Profile – Visual Guide
Once more, you can find your Thunderbird Profile directory at the following locations
- For Windows XP; “C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\”
- For Vista, Windows 7; “C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Thuderbird\Profiles\”
1 – Copying old profile
2 – Pasting the New Profile Directory
3 – Changing the Thunderbird INI file
You can find ini files at the following locations for different operating systems.
- For Windows XP; “C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Thunderbird\”
- For Vista, windows 7; “C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Thuderbird\”
Check If Everything is Working
Although everything seemed to be migrated successfully, when I tried to send or get emails, Thunderbird was not able to receive or send any messages. Following error was popping up while sending any emails.
“Sending of message failed.
The message could not be sent using SMTP server smtp.mail.yahoo.com for an unknown reason. Please verify that your SMTP server settings are correct and try again, or contact your network administrator.”
After some searching, I found out that the problem was caused by Avast. The antivirus software, Avast, was not happy with this migration.
If you encounter a similar problem, first disable the avast and check if you can send or receive email.
If Avast is the cause of the problem, then you can solve this dilemma by re-importing the mail shield certificate back to Mozilla Thunderbird.
- Delete the current avast certificate from Thunderbird.
- Export the Avast mail shield certificate.
- And import the new mail certificate to Thunderbird.
Follow this link for a more detailed explanation on how to export and import the mail certificates.