Thunderbird (assuming you used the defaults), stored email accounts and messages in c:\users\<yourid>/\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles\<yourprofilename\ (in either Mail\POPaccountname\emailfolders or Mail\Local Folders\emailfolders.) </p>

Thank you David!

Prior to seeing your reply, I was thinking that if I did copy those folders from the desktop to the laptop, wouldn't they overwrite the same named profile rather than merge them?

Would there be a way to merge them together or would I have to rename them so they wouldn't be overwritten?

While waiting for your reply or others, I am going to look on the desktop to see the names of each profile.

You cannot merge profiles, although you can have multiple profiles if you are prepared to alternate each as the default. If you are referring to POP message folders, then yes, those can be copied and stored in the Mail\local folders folder of the default profile - do this when thunderbird is not running.

Hi David,

I understand that profiles cannot be merged. What a great feature if they could be and not overwrite what was already there.

I have a 2nd hard drive on my HP Envy laptop.

Could I copy intact from the Dell desktop all of the contents there (including all of these profiles that somehow show up as different places for the same email address? I doubt I am making myself clear.

If I could, then yest they would all be on my laptop.

If your short-term goal is to free reliance on the old desktop, then copying to second drive causes no issues. To gain access to the old messages, you need to - exit thunderbird - in windows file explorer, locate the profile components in the Acronis backup. The file to view will be the users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles.ini file. It's simple text and notepad will open it. The name of the active profile will be there. The profile itself will be in the ...appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder. and in that will be a Mail folder and the POP account will be there and message folders, such as INPUT and INPUT.msf. Those files should be copied to your active profile in the Mail\Local Folders folder.

Thank you David! I'll try to do that over the weekend. I also could save it to a different Windows profile on the HP Envy, correct? If I did that, I would have to sign out and sign into this one to open the transported Thunderbird emails from the old desktop?

Now, if I just copy them from recovering from the Desktop acronis backup, how would I open them on the 2nd hard drive instead of it launching the one on the primary hard drive? Would I just have to go to launch another profile or go to open profile manager?

The interesting thing is when I just looked in the bottom right corner of Thunderbird on my HP Envy laptop, it said, "Old Dell copied."

If I mentioned originally on this post, I had recovered the entire Dell Desktop from Acronis onto the 2nd hard drive on the HP Envy and then moved the Dell Desktop folder from the 2nd hard drive to the Desktop folder in the primary hard drive. However, I wasn't and not able to see many of the old emails from the original Dell for some reason. Like I said, when I do a search, I can see them and some of the body of the emails, but when I clik on the Search items that come up, the body is then completly blank.

In the interim, I'll try working on your latest suggestions and see if I see all of the old Dell Thunderbird messages in the 2nd hard drive once I recover them there. I still have the Acronis backup I did from the Dell on a separate Western Digital Passport hard drive.

If you have valid profiles in multiple locations, you can access each separately with Profile manager. To do that, click the Windows key and the 'r' key and then enter thunderbird.exe -p and press enter key. Then, select 'create profile, then click next, then enter a name (e.g., aprofile), then click the browse button to locate and select your desired profile to use.