Thunderbird - have you restored mail to it after a reinstall of winXP?

hamster

Hi,

I have been using Thunderbird instead of Outlook since Xmas more or less and I'm really happy with it. I like to back up my mail once a month or so. I do this by backing up the entire mail directory (which has a couple of accounts - eircom and gmail for example)

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\hi9r4lqg.default\Mail

Under the mail directory is the structure which holds all my accounts, mail folders and finally mails themselves.

The question I have is this: Have you ever tried restoring your mail to Thunderbird using a backup? The reason I ask is because the import option only gives the option for importing outlook, eudora mail etc.. but not for backed up Thunderbird mail.

I'll check Thunderbird's website for this info but on the surface it's seems not mentioned. But I'm sure someone has wondered about this already?

hamster

Actually... I had another look and you can backup. The quickiest way similar to outlook (whose export function is broken half the time).

1. Back up by copying the profile folder to a CD.
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\0vbqzixh.<yourname or default>

2. Reinstall XP & thunderbird. Run thunderbird under cmd: thunderbird.exe -profilemanager. Create a profile from the window that pops up and choose the backed up folder to restore.

On a separate note, Gmail is slowly moving me away from pc client based mail utilities. Gmail's web based version is actually a joy to use. I mainly keep the local one now because of years of interesting old email rubbish.

hostyle

hamster wrote:

On a separate note, Gmail is slowly moving me away from pc client based mail utilities. Gmail's web based version is actually a joy to use. I mainly keep the local one now because of years of interesting old email rubbish.

There are utilities out there to forward all your old mails to gmail. I think they even keep the date etc. intact.

Having said that I wouldn't trust gmail with anything but throw-away emails. The more information you put into their hands (via searches, viewing websites displaying google AdSense adds, gmail, etc.) the more they can store about you and sell to third parties whenever they decide to.

hamster

hostyle wrote:

There are utilities out there to forward all your old mails to gmail. I think they even keep the date etc. intact.

Having said that I wouldn't trust gmail with anything but throw-away emails. The more information you put into their hands (via searches, viewing websites displaying google AdSense adds, gmail, etc.) the more they can store about you and sell to third parties whenever they decide to.

True... I treated it a bit like hotmail at first... but it's growing on me. God damn them!

rsynnott

hostyle wrote:

There are utilities out there to forward all your old mails to gmail. I think they even keep the date etc. intact.

Having said that I wouldn't trust gmail with anything but throw-away emails. The more information you put into their hands (via searches, viewing websites displaying google AdSense adds, gmail, etc.) the more they can store about you and sell to third parties whenever they decide to.

Stop scaremongering. Read their user agreement. They can advertise at you directly (the text ads) using its content. That's about it.

hostyle

rsynnott wrote:

Stop scaremongering. Read their user agreement. They can advertise at you directly (the text ads) using its content. That's about it.

And when they change their user agreement?

rsynnott

hostyle wrote:

And when they change their user agreement?

Then it won't apply retro-actively. You can start scaremongering about them at that point. I would be very surprised, tho, if an otherwise very ethical company decided it would make everyone in the world hate it.

hostyle

rsynnott wrote:

I would be very surprised, tho, if an otherwise very ethical company decided it would make everyone in the world hate it.

You do realise google is a for-profit business with share-holders? Being ethical has nothing to do with it. Its all about money now. I'll give em two years max before something "bad" happens.

oneweb

Back on topic, it's possible to just copy the mail folder to your new profile but you'll need to edit your prefs.js in the profile folder to point to the new profile location (the salted foldername (hi9r4lqg.default) will differ)

MartMax

if you use thunderbird to access IMAP emails, i don't there would be a problem if you reformatted or corrupted your local profile. everything in IMAP folders should stay as it is but you might want to set the Sent/Trash folders to remote IMAP server rather than having them local, in case you wanna keep the contents safe away. i might be wrong thou. :rolleyes:

Caixa

oneweb wrote:

Back on topic, it's possible to just copy the mail folder to your new profile but you'll need to edit your prefs.js in the profile folder to point to the new profile location (the salted foldername (hi9r4lqg.default) will differ)

I always found that as long as you copy the whole old %userprofile%\Application Data\Thunderbird directory into the new %userprofile%\Application Data folder before I start Thunderbird for the first time after a reinstall, it works fine.