Can you post a screenshot of the folders in your profile? If local folders are there, they would normally be copied. I just ran a test, copying profile to USB and starting TB with access to local folders.

Here are the folders in the profile folder, attached

That's the folder of multiple profiles, not the profile folder itself. If you copied appdata/roaming/thunderbird then all of those are now on the flash drive. That also copies the profiles.ini file that points appropriately. I guess what will help will be seeing a screenshot of what you copied to flash drive.

Please also post a screenshot of the local folders in mail folder in whichever is your primary profile. If unsure, that will be visible by clicking help>more troubleshooting information and scrolling down to Profile Folder and opening it to see breadcrumb listing at top of screen.

Here is what is on my flash drive. I go to "roaming" and copy the folder under it named Thunderbird.

attaching both images.

Can you show screenshot of the Local Folders in the Mail folder? That is the normal location.

Also, from desktop PC, while in TB, highlight local folders, rightclick and do screenprint. That shows you where there are on PC. That should correspond to the same location on Flash drive.

Maybe this will help. The left pane shows the flash drive Mail=>Local folder, the right pane shows the Mail=> Local folder in the PC. Interesting, huh?

There are only 3 of my local folders in the left pane, but appears to have all of them in the right pane.

I am showing the mail pane from the interface in TB in the other image just to prove that I do have other local folders. I copy and paste the "thunderbird" folder to the flash drive.

This just not make sense. But what makes less sense is that when I copy and paste from the flash drive the thunderbird folder over to the laptop, I don't get any local folders. (I copy it to "roaming", so it overwrites "thunderbird" folder.)

I guess I can do a drive clone and then copy the active partition to the laptop. I did that once and it worked. Both systems are virtually identical.

Just copy the mbox files, the large ones with no extension, of Type 'File', e.g. Travel, Medical, to Mail/Local Folders in the laptop's profile folder, with TB closed. They should appear under Local Folders in the Folder Pane when TB restarts.

Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. The local folders are within the profile and you are copying the full thunderbird folder to laptop. The properties for folder on PC and on laptop should be the same size and same number of files. All TB does is access the profile. I recall there are several profiles. Is it possible you're accessing a different one than v7bfvwkk.tim on the laptop? This is not a TB issue. There's something else here.

I checked the other profiles on the laptop. The v7bfvwkk.tim is the only one that has a "mail" folder in it. That said, the laptop only has 3 profiles and the desktop (the system I am attempting to copy to the laptop) has 6 profiles. Very strange since I am copying the "thunderbird" folder (and supposedly all sub folder of course).

The only profile with a "mail" folder in it is v7bfvwkk.tim. BTW, I have two email accounts that I am accessing with TB. In addition to not transferring the local folders, TB is also not transferring the second email account and it's folders. Maybe this has something to do with it.

I just don't understand, since I am copying the higher level folder (TB) which contains all the accounts and folders.

Are you copying while TB is running? That could lock files. This is a Windows issue, so watch the copy process carefully. Let us know. If a 100% copy, TB should work perfectly.

I will try it again. Just not sure if TB was open. I don't think so. Thanks.

You were right. I must have had TB open on the laptop inadvertently. I just did the copy again and it work. Thanks and sorry for the lame issue.

I'm glad it's fixed. That's what matters.