How To Restore A Thunderbird Profile On A New Computer, After Crash
When you purchase a new computer you often want to move at least some data from the old computer to the new. At the very top of the lists are usually email accounts if a desktop email client like Thunderbird or Outlook is used. The same may be necessary after a hard drive crash for instance.
But how do you get your Thunderbird emails to the new computer? It is actually very easy to do providing that the old data is still available and readable.
First thing you need to do is to locate the Thunderbird profile directory on the old hard drive or computer. The profile stores all account information including emails in the inbox, send out, email account information and attachments.
Tip: the easiest way to locate the profile folder is to open Thunderbird, select Help > Troubleshooting Information, and there the show folder button which opens it on the local computer.
Check the Mozilla Zine article for the paths. Make sure the data is available on the new computer, either by connecting the hard drive to the computer, copying the data to CD, DVD or removable storage devices or via network connections.
Install Mozilla Thunderbird on the new computer but do not run it after installation if possible. The first run creates a profile on the new computer. Now copy the full profile directory from the old hard drive to the new computer or new hard drive. Make sure that you copy it using the right path information taken from the Mozilla Zine article.
If you already run Thunderbird you have a profile already. Do not worry, it is not that bad. You can simply copy the data from the old Thunderbird profile folder into the new profile. Please note that this will remove all information stored in the new profile which means that if you have setup email accounts and received emails, well, they are gone after that process.
If you do not want that you can copy the data to a new profile instead. It is not the best solution though as you can only launch one profile which means you would need to switch between profiles or find a way to merge them.
Another option that you have for the backup and restoration is to use a third-party program like Mozbackup. The free program can backup all Thunderbird data and restore it at a later point in time on a new computer.
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!