Loading old XP emails on a new W10 machine
I have a client that was until 3 weeks ago using XP and TB. His HDD was dying so rebuilt to W10 and installed TB 91.8.0.
If I copy over the profile, I can get TB to load it and his previous email and accounts appear but I can not collect new mail “the connection with the server was interrupted”. I spoke with the host, Zen, and the account credentials are correct, I can login to web mail. The advice from Zen was to setup the profiles manually and this worked for some reason, I can collect email, however, because the old profile was pop and mail was deleted from the server after a number of days the old mail is sitting in the old profile.
So, the old profile, with old email inside will not collect new mail, commence hours of research. If I set up a new profile, I can get new mail but don’t have access to the old profile and email.
I tried loading the old profile, which will not connect for new mail but does display the old mail, then creating new/existing email accounts to get the new email but I get a new message saying “incoming server already exists”.
I appear to be stuck, I can have the new mail working with no old mail or the old mail visible with no collection of new mail but not both.
Any pointers or help would be much appreciated.
Alan
Chosen solution
In Thunderbird, using the new profile that fetches new mail, create a new folder under the Local Folders account. Call it something appropriate; for storage of messages from the old profile. Under this folder, create a subfolder and call it Temp. Open the folder of the new profile then quit Tbird.
Open the old profile folder and go to Mail → {pop server name} and select all the mbox files (they have no filename extension) and all the .sbd folders then copy them.
In the new profile's folder, go to Mail → Local Folders. Inside you will see a .sbd folder and an mbox file that correspond to the folder you created in Thundebird above. Paste the mbox files and .sbd folders copied in the previous step into this location, inside that .sdb folder, alongside the Temp and Temp.msf files.
Launch Tbird and you should see the messages from the old profile under the Local Folders account, inside the folder you created at the top. You can then delete that Temp subfolder, it's no longer needed.
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Chosen Solution
In Thunderbird, using the new profile that fetches new mail, create a new folder under the Local Folders account. Call it something appropriate; for storage of messages from the old profile. Under this folder, create a subfolder and call it Temp. Open the folder of the new profile then quit Tbird.
Open the old profile folder and go to Mail → {pop server name} and select all the mbox files (they have no filename extension) and all the .sbd folders then copy them.
In the new profile's folder, go to Mail → Local Folders. Inside you will see a .sbd folder and an mbox file that correspond to the folder you created in Thundebird above. Paste the mbox files and .sbd folders copied in the previous step into this location, inside that .sdb folder, alongside the Temp and Temp.msf files.
Launch Tbird and you should see the messages from the old profile under the Local Folders account, inside the folder you created at the top. You can then delete that Temp subfolder, it's no longer needed.
Hey presto, it worked like a charm. Thank you Stans you were bang on the nail