Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Denc nañu waxtaan wii. Yónneel yeneen laaj soo soxlaa ndimbal.

Changing where Thunderbird saves emails

  • 1 tontu
  • 0 am na jafe-jafe bii
  • 2 views
  • i mujjee tontu mooy david

MistWing
MistWing
more options

I'm not sure where to put this post. Sorry.

I don't have a lot of internal hard drive space and want to have Thunderbird store emails to an external hard drive. So, I have a few questions about this.

Q1: How do I do this? I saw a procedure on a non-Mozilla site and it seemed questionable to me. So I thought it would be best to get the procedure from here

Q2: When I move the files (not copying them) will this impact the emails online (Gmail and Yahoo)? I don't want to accidentally delete them from the server

Q3: I am concerned about the following scenario: I tell Thunderbird to use the external drive. Thunderbird starts to download emails to the external drive. What happens to the emails that are on the internal drive? does Thunderbird move them to the external drive? Or will I have to move them manually? Can I safely move email folders on top of folders of the same name without messing anything up? (I'm concerned that Thunderbird would not know that a previously downloaded folder exists and would start to download it in the new spot. So when I move the folders from the old spot to the new spot, it would overlay the new copy and I don't want that to mess anything up)

I hope my questions make sense. I'm not always clear about how I ask things

I just updated Thunderbird. So, I'm running the latest version. I'm using Windows 10 (old computer)

Thank you MistWing

I'm not sure where to put this post. Sorry. I don't have a lot of internal hard drive space and want to have Thunderbird store emails to an external hard drive. So, I have a few questions about this. Q1: How do I do this? I saw a procedure on a non-Mozilla site and it seemed questionable to me. So I thought it would be best to get the procedure from here Q2: When I move the files (not copying them) will this impact the emails online (Gmail and Yahoo)? I don't want to accidentally delete them from the server Q3: I am concerned about the following scenario: I tell Thunderbird to use the external drive. Thunderbird starts to download emails to the external drive. What happens to the emails that are on the internal drive? does Thunderbird move them to the external drive? Or will I have to move them manually? Can I safely move email folders on top of folders of the same name without messing anything up? (I'm concerned that Thunderbird would not know that a previously downloaded folder exists and would start to download it in the new spot. So when I move the folders from the old spot to the new spot, it would overlay the new copy and I don't want that to mess anything up) I hope my questions make sense. I'm not always clear about how I ask things I just updated Thunderbird. So, I'm running the latest version. I'm using Windows 10 (old computer) Thank you MistWing

All Replies (1)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

THis is how I would do it. - click help>troubleshootinginformation - scroll down to profile folder. Click 'open folder' - exit TB - the account, if POP, is in the Mail folder, otherwise the Imapfolder. - it will appear as Mail\<accountname> with message folders such as inbox, inbox.msf, etc. - COPY the entire <accountname> folder and store on the external drive. - restart Thunderbird - click 'account settings' and then 'server settings' - note the bottom line links to 'local directory'. click the browse button to locate and select the folder you created on external drive. This may require a restart of Thunderbird - restart Thunderbird and all should be okay. Nothing will have been lost in the process. You can now delete that folder on drive c that you originally used as it isn't used anymore.

Reminder: when doing backups, you need to backup both your thunderbird profile and also the external drive folder.