Has anyone helped you retrieve the Thunderbird saved Profile (emails, address book, settings) from the laptop? If you do not have the saved profile, then things are fairly simple, basically starting fresh by downloading and installing Thunderbird. Step one - download and install https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/installing-thunderbird-windows or look for similar instructions if you are not using Windows on the new machine. There is a video and pictures to help you. Step two - set up to connect to your email account https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-account-configuration Before you can proceed you will need to know your email provider's settings for connecting an email client to your online email IMAP or POP server and SMTP server. Usually you can install Thunderbird and then call your email provider for support, or search for the settings online. You did not say which email service you use.

Thanks for your reply. My email service is Plusnet. Will you need to add to your answer?

This page appears to provide the settings you need to know. https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-set-up-plusnet-email/ - you want to look at the section "What other settings do I need" Do you know whether you want IMAP - your Plusnet account saves the emails and you can view them from any computer online and from Thunderbird, or POP - Thunderbird downloads all the emails to your own computer and they are not saved online? The settings you need for both IMAP and POP are listed on the Plusnet guide page, you need to pick one. Again if you had a working system and saved the Profile from it, you can copy that Profile (or get help to do that) so that the new Thunderbird uses the settings you had before. If not, follow the steps I mentioned - Step One to download and install Thunderbird. When you get to Step Two - automatic account configuration may not help, so try the manual setup method, using the settings from the Plusnet guide. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manual-account-configuration

Thanks so much for your answers to my questions. I apologise for not replying to you earlier. Everything worked well, thank you, except my contacts/address book didn't appear. How can I retrieve these, please?

I don't think you ever said whether your old profile was saved/backed up. The address book may not be salvageable if you do not have the files from that broken laptop.

Thank you. That is right I didn't. I have the external hard drive from the broken laptop so I will search it and I might be lucky and find the Profile. If not I will start from scratch to build up my contacts/address book. Thank so much for your help, it has been so reassuring. B220.

Hi B220, I am glad that I was able to help with the original question. I am not sure that having 'chosen solution' on your last reply will make sense to other people looking at this question for help with similar problems. If you need help with recovering the address book from Profile, please post a new question with the appropriate subject.