The instructions probably need updating to the newer sand boxed flatpaks that the new Ubuntu uses. But I don't have a copy to even look at it.

My sincere thanks to Matt. His reply is most likely correct in that the instructions probably need updating to take into account the new version of Ubuntu. I'm tempted, in the meantime, to install the earlier version of Ubuntu on the new PC.

You mention 'common' so perhaps the .thunderbird folder as shown below is the one you copy I've located info which said the thunderbird profile when installed as a snap on ubuntu is here:

• /home/yourusername/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.profileName

I suspect that .thunderbird folder has a lot more in it but they are 'hidden' files and folders. https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/files-hidden.html.en

Thanks for taking this on. However, I've spent some more hours following these instructions again:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer (which is dated 05/17/2022)

but modified, as suggested, to take snap into account when pasting .thunderbird to the new system. No improvement, sad to say - the system tells me that 351 files have been transferred, but it could be that I'm sending them to the wrong place. My next step will be to install xubuntu 22.04 on the "new" PC, which is the same as on the current one and doesn't have snap. Could be some time before I get back to you with the result, as my local expert is not available this coming week.

Roy

Thanks for taking this on. However, I've spent some more hours following these instructions again:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer (which is dated 05/17/2022)

but modified, as suggested, to take snap into account when pasting .thunderbird to the new system. No improvement, sad to say - the system tells me that 351 files have been transferred, but it could be that I'm sending them to the wrong place. My next step will be to install xubuntu 22.04 on the "new" PC, which is the same as on the current one and doesn't have snap. Could be some time before I get back to you with the result, as my local expert is not available this coming week.

Roy

First make sure that old and new computers are running the same version of Thunderbird.

On computer Old which I believe you installed Thunderbird using snap. Exit Thunderbird Access : /home/yourusername/snap/thunderbird/common folder Copy the .thunderbird folder to an external drive

On new computer which I believe you are going to install a version of Thunderbird from official download: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/ Make sure you choose correct language and suitable for Linux OS. Run Thunderbird once to force a default profile.

Exit Thunderbird Access Profile which you may discover in this location: Linux and Unix Profile folders are located here:

• ~/.thunderbird/<Profile name>/

However, if you're using a third party build from Debian or Ubuntu, those builds store your profile folder here:

• ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/<Profile name>.

In this instance you will notice the folder is actually called .mozilla-thunderbird If you find this is the case: Either : Access the .mozilla-thunderbird folder and delete all it's contents - so do not actually deleting the folder. Access your back up/copied '.thunderbird' folder and copy all it's contents then paste all those contents/files/folders etc into the '.mozilla-thunderbird' folder OR: delete the '.mozilla-thunderbird' folder Paste in the copied '.thunderbird' folder to replace it - then rename it to say '.mozilla-thunderbird'

IF by any chance you install Thunderbird from flatpak then: Flatpak apps store their data in a different directory, in the case of thunderbird it's:

• ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/cache/.thunderbird/

Then delete the default .thunderbird folder Paste in the copied .thunderbird folder into the cache folder - thus replacing the deleted default one with the one that you copied.

"First make sure that old and new computers are running the same version of Thunderbird."

Profuse apologies. That was the most obvious thing to check first, and I'd overlooked it. Somehow convinced myself that they were the same. Must be getting past it. Anyway, many thanks for your help. Will now remove xubuntu24.04 from the new PC and install xubuntu 22.04, same as on the one I'm using now - and will check the version of Thunderbird on it before doing anything else.

Thanks again, and sorry to have put you to the trouble of sorting this out.

Roy