[ubuntu-za] Mail between two versions of Thunderbird

[Peter Nel]

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:25 PM, Jan Greeff <jan at verslank.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter, believe it or not, I a still trying to find a way to transfer my mail profile from Thunderbird to Thunderbird on another drive. ( I have two hard drives on my machine, so when I upgrade, I can hopefully backup all my work and do a clean install onto the second drive.) I have no problem with my Open Office files and folders and the address books but the e-mails are a problem.
>
> What I did was to copy and paste the .thunderbird folder from the drive that I want to back up into the .thunderbird folder on the spare drive, but the result was that a new .thunderbird folder was created in the existing .thunderbird. So now I have home/jan/.thunderbird/.thunderbird.
>
> Do I now have to delete the first .thunderbird profile or how do I get the program to pick up the copied profile?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jan
>
> Péter Wrote:
> ...
>
> Anyway, I did a quick search again and got a link to a page that addresses exactly this problem of yours.
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Changing_Profile_Folder_Location
> Showing various different ways of migrating your thunderbird profile.
> It also contained another link more specific to Windows migrators:
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_from_Windows_to_Linux#Ubuntu
>
> Perhaps thunderbird is looking for the profile in the wrong place. This can be due to having started thunderbird before, and it might have created it's own empty profile, and is ignoring your new one. Also, I read in those mentioned pages of a file called "profiles.ini" somewhere in your thunderbird directory (e.g. /<your-home-dir>/.thunderbird/) with a setting that points to the profile directory you want, e.g.:
> ...
> Path=/home/eric/Profiles/Thunderbird/tanstaafl
> ...
>
> I definitely think your answer lies in one of those two pages.
>
> Regards
> Péter


Hi Jan,

Firstly,  you really should CC the mailing list with these queries, because:
1) other people may benefit from the solution;
2) other people might help you find one.

You should also consider other options for upgrading (I understand you
mean upgrading from one version of ubuntu to the next) :
1) As always, there's the option of simply running a regular upgrade
via the Update Manager, i.e. no new /re- install - I've done this
plenty of times, and wasn't disappointed - if you struggle with a
problem like copying your email files... then this is probably a good
option for you.
2) You can also create a dedicated partition for your /home folder --
this way you can do with your / (root) partition whatever you want
(e.g. format and re-install the OS) without touching your application
settings, personal files, and email - this is done less these days.
Once you're /home partition gets full you run into problems, same if
the /-partition gets full.
3) Lastly, it's also possible to copy your entire home directory
(/home/jan/) to a temp location (e.g. separate hard drive), install
the OS, then copy it back. I've also done this.

Now WRT your problem.
Jan said: "So now I have home/jan/.thunderbird/.thunderbird" -- you
should NOT have copied the source .thunderbird folder (the one with
your old emails) into the destination .thunderbird folder (under your
/home/jan/ directory). What you should have done was to copy (and
paste) it straight to your home directory (/home/jan/) - it would have
been better if there wasn't already /home/jan/.thunderbird folder.

Now you can do one of two things:
1) if you STILL HAVE your old .thunderbird (with email etc.) folder on
the other drive:
 1.a) delete the new /home/jan/.thunderbird/ folder (that also
contains another .thunderbird folder), and redo it; i.e. as described
in the previous paragraph.
2) if you do NOT STILL HAVE your old .thunderbird (with email etc.)
folder on the other drive: you must
 2.a) find the new place you copied/pasted it (.thunderbird with email
etc.) to - as I understand, you moved it to "/home/jan/.thunderbird",
i.e. it's the "/home/jan/.thunderbird/.thunderbird" directory;
 2.b) move it to a temp directory
 2.c) delete /home/jan/.thunderbird/ (the parent folder with new empty account)
 2.d) copy the one you just copied to the temp directory, back to /home/jan/

Hope fully this helps.

NB. As long as your original folder remains intact somewhere you can
try this again until you get it right.

Let us know what happens.

--
Péter Nel