I tried to place my profiles from Thunderbird into Thunderbird Portable and it did not work. Why?
My computer with Thunderbird installed died. In my haste to have email, I installed Thunderbird in a different computer and began using it. Later I read how to move my files over to a different computer and mentioned to a friend of mine that I had already started using this newly installed Thunderbird and didn't want to overwrite these new files with the files from the other computer. He suggested I install Thunderbird Portable and install the files from my old Thunderbird into Portable.
I followed Thunderbird's move instructions since I was able to remove the old hard drive from the dead computer and attach it to this other computer. However, after I copied the correct directory to Thunderbird Portable, when I opened up Thunderbird Portable it does not show any of the information from the other Thunderbird and starts by asking if I want to set up an email account.
I checked to make sure all the files did copy to the profile folder and they are there in a folder within the profile folder which looks to be the same as what I saw in my old Thunderbird installation.
Can someone help me. Thank you.
Fred
All Replies (5)
Hello there
There are no differences in functions. The only differences between the two versions are due to the way of "installation". The portable version runs with the profile folder in the same directory structure as the program files, while the normal version installs the profile in a separate folder location. This means that the regular version can support multiple user profiles while the portable version requires the use of an additional application to use a second profile. What is it that you really want? you want to sync your files to another location? Or is it only your email files?
regards
Since I can't run the programs that are on the hard drive that came from a computer that no longer works, I wanted to just have access to the email that was on that installation of Thunderbird.
I don't plan on running the Thunderbird Portable on line or using it for writing and receiving emails. Just be able to read some emails.
I'll use the regular Thunderbird program I installed on this new computer. So, unless there is a way to merge the old emails from the other computer with the current emails on this new computer, I would just use Thunderbird Portable to access the older emails for reference.
I'm wondering if my problem could be that I put the files in the wrong directory. Below is how the Portable version is installed on my computer and the folders under it.
Would someone please take a look and tell me which folder I should paste the backup files. Thank you.
C:\THUNDERBIRD_PORTABLE\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile
why not just install the import export tools add-on and use it to import whatever mail is in the old profile to a folder in your new versions local folders.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/
I didn't know this tool existed. Thank you.
Will it automatically find the correct folders to copy from and paste to?
I think my problem is that "portable" has a slightly different tree of files and I'm not sure which level I'm suppose to select the folder titled THUNDERBIRD to paste the files into.
Fred