Just copy your profile from the old machine over the profile in your new machine. It should be easier this time because you are moving from Thunderbird to Thunderbird, so it's just a matter of copying the appropriate files. Your previous move from Mac's email to Thunderbird was more complicated because it had to translate messages from one storage system's format to another, which involved importing and an implied conversion between formats.

To answer your questions:

1. Yes. It's called your profile.
2. Here are articles covering the transfer process. Speak up if you need more help or explanation.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_restoring-to-a-different-location

But I must warn you that I do not use nor know Mac computers, so any further help I can give will be limited to generalities. If you have a Mac-savvy friend or relative they should be able to follow these procedures for you.

A little rant:

IMHO, no-one with a computer connected to the internet has the right to say "I do not know what X is" when a few minutes using your favourite search engine will tell you all about X. For instance, Gmail is a free and freely available email service, also known as Googlemail, and is operated by Google. It can act as a handy parking place to hold email messages when attempting to move them from an old account or installation to a new one.

Rant over.

There are several free email services and some of them work well (Yahoo is not one I'd recommend). I don't know why folk continue to struggle with the rather tepid "free" offerings from their ISPs. Comcast, Time Warner, ATT and associates, bt.com, optus all crop up time and time again in this and other forums and there really is no need to stay with an inferior provider. On a similar line, I would urge you to find a better and more clued-up supplier next time you buy a computer, if you feel you need their help to get the new computer up and running.

They don't need to know how Thunderbird works; they just need to know how to copy all your personal folders from one machine to another. If they sell Macs they should be able to do that for you.

To Whom This Might Concern:

Please refer to my original request for support, and the 13 January 2016 reply by "Zenos".

(1) I did not know what "profile" meant to a Thunderbird person. After getting some help from Best Buy and Apple people, who also did not know, we were all finally able to determine that a Thunderbird "profile" means every stored letter and every piece of data and information associated with Thunderbird that might be found on a computer, except for the application program itself. The Thunderbird Profile is stored in a Mac OS library requiring specialized access. So that is the explicit answer to my question #(1). I did not receive this answer from Thunderbird.

(2) I still do not know what "gmail" is, exactly; I do know that it has something to do with Google. As far as I can determine, gmail has nothing to do with Thunderbird. If I must learn about gmail in order to use Thunderbird, then I might wonder why I should stay with Thunderbird at all.

(3) I am interested in transferring data files safely from an old iMac to a new iMac. Any interest I have in broadening my knowledge of computers beyond the IBM 700 series or the DEC PDP-45 series, or my programming skills beyond Fortran, C, or COBOL, is at most secondary. I am a customer and an application program user. Even though I do have some interest in staying abreast of computer developments, my concern at the present moment is how to transfer data from an old iMac to a new iMac.

(4) I have reviewed my original letter, and I believe it is explicit and unambiguous about my needs and my level of knowledge. Thunderbird's response was possibly arrogant, and certanly dismissive. The response also seems to suggest that Thunderbird was not designed to give support to Macintosh users. So I shall keep this in mind in any future modifications I make to my Mac OS X software system.

Jack Nance

I posted you two links to articles on a Web page which I would hope provide answers to your questions. I invited you to seek further clarification. As far as I am able, I'm willing to help you with that. So far I see no sign that you have read those articles.

I also told you that I personally am unfamiliar with Macs, so I cannot offer you precise guidance on navigating your file system or use of the tools available to you. I have never seen Finder and I know nothing about what a Mac uses its libraries for. Maybe a fellow Mac user will read this and step in. But knowledgable and competent Mac users seem to be rather scarce on this forum. You might find more useful help on a forum aimed specifically at Mac users.

But the articles I linked to tell you how to use Thunderbird to find your profile. So again, I don't imagine you have read them or followed their guidance.

Gmail is of very little relevance here. You brought it up as if to suggest it was obscure or arcane whereas it is in actuality a successful and popular service with a large percentage of global email usage.

You have been told that your profile is what you need to move. You have been shown advice on how to locate it and how to copy it. You have been advised to ask for further help on this, but I see no specific questions from you about this process; just a litany of your woes and dissatisfaction.

I am not "Thunderbird". Like the other people who try to help on this forum, I am just a user, like you, volunteering to help where I can. I feel I have done my level best to advise you of my own shortcomings when it comes to helping a Mac user.

Please read the articles, try to follow them through and then come back with any specific points of difficulty.

And please, advice that doesn't suit you or doesn't fit your particular situation isn't necessarily "incorrect", as you keep saying. I have pointed many dozens of users to these same articles and most users are successful after following them.

I am not a student of Thunderbird. I am a customer with a specific difficulty, encountered while attempting to transfer data files from an old iMac to a new iMac.

The Apple people and the Best Buy Geek Squad stopped what they were doing and helped me out.

I am happy for your success with many dozens of users. You were not successful with me. What is possibly more important, you did not bother to work out how best to lead me into the solutions to my difficulties.

I wish you success in your future activities.

Jack Nance

Being a customer usually indicates that you paid for something. So far you have just come here to complain about your inability to operate your computer while using free software.

You were given all the instructions to do what you asked but you chose to ignore them or are not smart enough to understand them. The fact that you trust the Geek Squad with you computer speaks volumes about your computer skills.

Good-bye, kids.