- once installed to c, exit thunderbird - locate accounts in profile - imapmail for imap accounts and mail folder for pop accounts - copy the accounts to drive e - start thunderbird and click account settings and then server settings - click link at bottom line that points to account and change to the drive e setting - close and restart thunderbird and all should be ok you can now delete those folders in the C profile

I cannot help with pst.

Hi David, Thank you. Every time I do something like that it asks me to start again. All my emails get taken from the server and I have to delete/deal etc with them all over again. It has happened to me about 3 times and not happy.

I went to server setting and at the bottom it says Local Directory:

C:\Users\X299-UD4-144\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\g4lsi6z7.default-esr-1\Mail\webmail.highway1.com.au

My thinking is that I have to copy all this to say: E:\Thunderbird\Profiles\g4lsi6z7.default-esr-1\Mail\webmail.highway1.com.au.

Then change the local director using Browse?????

Is this right?

Yes, To ensure we get this right, here are steps to move an account to E: - exit thunderbird - copy the webmail.highway1.com.au to drive E - feel free to rename if desired, as name is not important - start thunderbird, click 'account settings>server settings - click the browse button at the side of Local directory, and then click to the drive E profile and click ok - thunderbird will close and restart - once all is okay, you can delete the webmail.highway1.com.au from Local Directory

This works because Thunderbird is intentionally stupid. People have problems when they think thunderbird 'looks' for the account. Instead, it must be explicitly told all of this.  :)

Hi David - no this did not work.

I followed the instructions and it worked. All working. Then I deleted the Thunderbird stuff on c-drive (as I was running out of space). I tried to respond to 3 emails and they all refused to send. I restarted my PC and Thunderbird asked me to establish my credentials AGAIN.

I re-established a NEW Thunderbird and then I pointed the Server setting to my E-drive and all not right. -All my subfolders are missing and I have all these strange subfolders.

All the emails that I deleted are back all the emails I responded are back as if I have not responded. No sent folder nothing looks right

What shall I do - all my work and emails are all messed up

I would appear I have to have something in the default folder on my C-drive.

Can you help???

Made a small error - but still have not got my folders back

While I am running out of space on my C-drive I cannot delete it until you kind folks tell me what I did wrong. Thank you.

The screenshots you are sharing provide no information on the problem. Possibly better to show screenshots of your account pane that slows pointer to local directory and also screenshot of the folder on drive E.

David - Thank you.

I am not sure what you mean by "your account pane. But here are 2 shots .

It looks like you copied the entire profile, not just the account folder - click account settings and highlight the account name. the window should show local folder on bottom line that links to the account. that is the screenshot i would like to see.

Thanks.

I am a bit think sometimes. - is this what you need?

That is the pane for server settings. Back up one to the account itself. That shows local directory to where the account is. This pane will also show whether account is IMAP or POP.

Hi David - sorry I have no idea what you want.

Try this??

My thinking is that I have to copy all this to say: E:\Thunderbird\Profiles\g4lsi6z7.default-esr-1\Mail\webmail.highway1.com.au. Then change the local director using Browse????? Is this right?

As you appear to be a "Local Bloke" I will chime in with my 2¢ and hope I can make it clear enough to make sense. Just be assured the home of BHP is much larger than my very smokey corner of SA

What you proposed there is most certainly not right.

To get Thunderbird to place it's "database" as you term it onto another drive you have to place the entire profile folder structure and contents into the new location with Thunderbird not running.

You then create a new profile using the profile manager in the location you have placed to profile folder and restart Thunderbird. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles#w_start-the-profile-manager-when-thunderbird-is-closed Or you can use the About:profiles link in the troubleshooting information to create, switch and manage profiles. But that has never been documented, although the same principles apply as for the profile manager. It is also a copy of the same thing in Firefox. For my images I used the About:profiles approach because I can access it without closing Thunderbird.

Once you have gone through the process of pointing to a folder, do not change the profile "name" or the folder selected will change to a new default value.

Here I have set up to create a profile called Whatname in the folder location C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\69njmd8q.doggy

Once I clicked "finish" on that dialog the newly created profile is added to the list of profiles in about:profiles as shown below.

Now you can launch the profile using the Launch profile in new browser button. It will just open another copy of Thunderbird with that profile (the copy was just a little too exact)

Now here is the bit to watch out for, the new profile will become your default, so everything is good if when you launch it everything looks good. If not you will need to use the "set as default profile" button under your previous default on the C: drive to essentially undo the change of default profile to launch.

Regardless, pressing ⊞Windows key+R to launch the windows run dialog and typing Thunderbird -p in the text area and pressing enter will always launch the profile manager so you can pick another profile is all else fails.

Changing the account directory will see mail for that account stored in the specified location but that is all. I do not see it as a substitute for moving the profile location. You end up creating a rod for your own back at a future time changing the account directory as it makes migrating the profile to a new machine much harder. You have these absolute pointers to your data for the account now that rarely exist in exactly the same form on the new machine as the point you are installing software, so even once you move your profile you will get Thunderbird up and running with your account and contacts and the accounts will be empty.

The is also the issue that calendars, contacts the global search database (mine is many GB is size) and all settings remain on the C: drive in the original location when you only change the account directory.

Now your 2 from the original post.

Thunderbird has no idea what a PST file is, it imports mail from the outlook application via what used to be called dynamic data exchange. That is, Thunderbird asks the Outlook application for say a list of calendars and Outlook offers the requested data. It all works while both applications or on the same page and has no dependence on, what used to be, the constantly changing format of the underlying data storage file (back when this stuff was first written every new release of MS Office came with new file formats and a slew of file import filters). Outlook import has not had much in the way of change since Netscape held the reins other than enough new code to fix it when it actually stops functioning.

So the best approach is to install Thunderbird on a machine with Outlook running as the default mail client and the PST file included as the default in outlook and let the import just do it's thing. It also eliminates the possible issue that the PST is corrupt in some way as outlook will be able to open it if it is not corrupt. Even if the import occurs on the wrong computer, it is far easier to move profiles than it is to try and use third party software you are not familiar with.

Yes, I live in Broken Hill. Thank you for the explanation – I am totally lost.

I initially copied everything from the C-drive to my E-drive then changed the location of the server and Thunderbird closed and opened again and I was OK. I then deleted all reference to Thunderbird as C-drive is full and the next time I closed Windows 11 and opened Thunderbird it was all lost.

I also used the import from Outlook, and it stalled at 33%. I did a ScanPST and that supposedly fixed all the errors and still nothing.

None of my many folders and no calendar date and no contacts made it into Thunderbird.

Your response was great, but I did not understand a word of it.

I also asked on a separate page: how to import all of Outook to Thunderbird and got far less response, except for today and all those was lost on me.

My error, I was asking for screenshot of account pane when what I need is screenshot of server settings pane. But you may see the problem yourself when you look at it. The bottom line (local directory) needs to be pointing to the account on drive E, not the profile. I had earlier suggested just copying the account. Set that local directory pointer so that it is pointing directly to webmail.highway1.com.au on drive E.

This is not a conflict with Matt's suggestion - he knows far more than I. This is an alternative. My suggestion leaves the profile on C, but the accounts on E. Do what seems easiest for you. I regret misleading you with earlier requests for the account pane, when what I wanted was the server pane.