Thunderbird

Ok so im soon to be changing over to a Mac but i dont want to lose all my emails from thunderbird. At the moment when i switch PCs or reformat my HDD i just take the profile folder with me and put it back in the new thunderbird installation folder. Is this the same case for when i get a mac? or are all the file extensions going to be different?

Whats the best way for me to do it? As i have alot of important emails that i cant afford to lose

Thanks

Joe

There is Thunderbird for OSX. I use Thundbird on my PC's for email. I will check the Mac version and see if the message save format is the same. It should be.

thanks for your help, did u find out if the files are the same? can anybody else advice me on this?

They are the same. I transferred all my Thunderbird email from my PC to my Mac when I made the switch about 5 months ago. No problems. By the way, the file names and formats are the same for all of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. I have used Thunderbird on all three and transferred the files between them seamlessly.

In fact, at one time I had a Linux partition, a Windows partition and a common ext2 partition on my PC. I kept all my Thunderbird email in the common ext2 partition and both Windows and Linux accessed them there, working on the SAME files! Thunderbird is wonderful.

mac57 said:

They are the same. I transferred all my Thunderbird email from my PC to my Mac when I made the switch about 5 months ago. No problems. By the way, the file names and formats are the same for all of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. I have used Thunderbird on all three and transferred the files between them seamlessly.

In fact, at one time I had a Linux partition, a Windows partition and a common ext2 partition on my PC. I kept all my Thunderbird email in the common ext2 partition and both Windows and Linux accessed them there, working on the SAME files! Thunderbird is wonderful.

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Sounds good, but please could you take me through how to transfer the T'bird mail over to the Mac? I was a long time user of this email client on a Win XP laptop, and archived my T'Bird Profiles folder to an external USB HD before wiping it clean. Got a MacBook last weekend and installed T'Bird last night. Not sure of the next step, as if I was using XP I would just replace the new install Profiles folder with my archived version. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

OK, here is how I did it. I have Thunderbird set up to use Local Folders, and I archive all my email in an email folder set there. Doing this greatly simplifies the process of transferring Thunderbird email between computers, which is why I do it that way. So, if you have archived email in your user account folder hierarchies, create some new Thunderbird local folders and move them there (Thunderbird lets you drag n drop, among may other techniques, to accomplish this).

Now, with that done, you are just going to move your Local Folders folder from your Windows version of your Thunderbird profile to the Mac version of your Thunderbird profile. Here's how to do this.

Go into your Thunderbird profile on your Windows box (usually at Cyour-userid\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\your-profile-number\). There you will find a folder called Mail. Open that and you will see folders inside, one of which is called "Local Folders". Save off that folder hierarchy. That is all your archived Windows Thunderbird email.

Now go to your Mac, and install and run Thunderbird without importing anything - just a clean install. Create your email account from scratch - this is easier than trying to get it to "eat" the Windows definition files. Make sure everything is working and you can send and receive email. Now quit Thunderbird.

Now go to your Thunderbird profile on your Mac. On the Mac, that will be at your home directory, Library, Thunderbird, Profiles, your-profile-number. Open this folder and open the Mail folder within. Copy your Local Folders hierarchy saved off from Windows into this location. If you do this correctly, afterwards in your Mail folder you should see a Local Folders folder and a folder associated with your email account.

Restart Thunderbird. It will see your newly installed Local Folders, and all the email within, and show it/them in its interface. Done! Essentially, you just moved your Local Folders folder from your Windows Thunderbird profile folder to your Mac Thunderbird profile folder. Easy, obvious and very effective! Good luck.