Can I create a local folder while using a pop profile?

If so, I can import the old profile with wifi turned off. Move old emails to local folders. Turn on wifi. Turn the profile to imap.

Or with wifi off, copy the old profile. Turn off downloading emails. Change account to imap. Still with wifi off. Move the old emails to local folders. Turn on wifi.

I'm definitely making this too complicated & missing something.

BTW , I had "leave on server" checked in the old profile.

deleted

-***** I've done more reading -- will this work?? ******

1) Move old profile into %appdata% location on new computer that has the current default profile.

2) Turn off wifi

2) Open profile.ini and point to old profile instead of new default.

3) Open TB & uncheck any automatic downloading of emails. With wifi off, I can get these unchecked before anything downloads.

4) Move old emails in pop account to local folders in pop account (they exist in pop, don't they?)

5) Turn on wifi

6) Create an imap account with my current email address (xfinity has step by step instructions.) Both pop & imap will exist at same time. (Is that correct??)

7) Make sure everything's right & delete pop account

Big thanks to anyone who can assure me I'm making sense here :)!

I'd use the ImportExportTools add-on to import the required folders from the old profile into the new Thunderbird.

By default it will import them into Local Folders.

If you're averse to using an addon, if you take care to understand your profile, you could just copy files and folders using your file manager. I'd start by making an empty placeholder folder in the new Thunderbird, so when you look at the new profile on Explorer you'll know where to insert the older material.

delete as duplicate

Zenos - thanks!

Importtool doesn't work because then I don't wind up with the old settings. I did try exporting & that works nicely. So I'll use that to move the emails to local folders.

However, I copied the old profile but it opens very tiny because I have a 4K. The new profile doesn't do that. So ideally I'd copy the settings from the old into the new, not the whole profile.

What files are settings in that I want to copy ... like tags, folders, addons, menu icons selected?

You have a new profile and it's working for you. You want your old messages imported into this new profile.

Where do settings come into this?

I was able to create a new Thunderbird that uses imap. It was easy. A lot of my concerns were already incorporated into the TB programming. THANK you TB programmers! So if it helps anyone, this is what I learned:

From above my originally planned steps were: -***** I've done more reading -- will this work?? ******

1) Move old profile into %appdata% location on new computer that has the current default profile. That worked. Put %appdata% into the start search bar & it goes to that folder directly.

2) Turn off wifi Once more than one profile is available, using Run and "thunderbird.exe -p" lets you pick which one. It also let's you start "offline" so wifi doesn't matter.

2) Open profile.ini and point to old profile instead of new default. No need. Move the profile.ini that came with the old profile.

3) Open TB & uncheck any automatic downloading of emails. With wifi off, I can get these unchecked before anything downloads.

4) Move old emails in pop account to local folders in pop account (they exist in pop, don't they?) Yes, pop accounts have a local folder too. Moving a folder of emails from active online to local folders or any other combo of moving was easy. Just move. It takes a while for syncing to happen.

5) Turn on wifi

6) Create an imap account with my current email address (xfinity has step by step instructions.) Both pop & imap will exist at same time. (Is that correct??) Yes, you can have a profile that's pop and another that's imap available and pick between them when starting up. I turned off checking mail in the pop so it doesn't confuse things, since I'm just moving from it

7) Make sure everything's right & delete pop account Big thanks to anyone who can assure me I'm making sense here :)!

ALSO:

My old pop profile was coming up with super small text on my new computer that's got a 4k screen. It's an ADD-ON (isn't it always?). The theme & size changer add-on must be set to a small size in the old profile. The same addon didn't cause a problem in the new profile until I accidentally set it to too small a zoom. I'm still trying to figure out how to work it on the 4k.

The add-on only fixes menus and lists etc. If your message content is also too small, try the dpi setting in the Config Editor.

Change layout.css.dpi to some small value above 1, say 1.5 and go from there.

There is another setting available in the Config Editor, but it may not be there by default and you may have to add it: layout.css.PixelsPerPx

I don't know how these two settings play together. My feeling is that anything that operates in terms of PixelsPerPx is a bit like the digital zoom in a camera or phone, and is a somewhat clunky way of implementing scaling. Or another way of looking at it, have you seen the artefacts you get when you run an LCD monitor at other than its native resolution?

Setting DPI, if it's done properly, should give a more fundamentally correct adjustment and better harmonization between different applications.

My current device has 144 DPI whereas Windows and Linux default to 96 DPI. Get this right and a lot follows on painlessly. Get it right in your OS's setting first, then see what you need to do to Thunderbird's own layout.css.dpi option.