Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

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chrissiehope
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Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Sun Jul 21, 2019 11:57 am

I'm getting my laptop up to date ready for a 2 week stay in Wales. I want to transfer some folders from Thunderbird on pc to thunderbird on laptop. I've looked on line & managed to get the folders I want on to a USB stick, but can't seem to get them into the right place on the laptop !

A second issue - on the laptop, it seems to want to download emails as soon as they arrive, which I don't want happening - how do I stop this ? I had to drag & drop them onto the USB stick to get them back on the main pc !

TIA
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby Enrique » Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:42 pm

Hi chrissiehope,
On the PC you will have the location of the "folders" you copied to USB

So on the laptop......... pull up two Explorer windows (side by side) one will have the USB folders and the other you trawl down to where they need to go and then Drag and Drop.

See Windows 10 section.............

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

The location on laptop will look similar...........

C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\

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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby casita-bonita » Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:46 pm

Dont have my pc powered up at the moment. But you can put the mail folders anywhere you want. Then in account settings point to the folder where you placed them. Simplest way is to copy the entire mail folder set from the source to the destination, then set your mail account, or accounts if you have more than one to the new folder. You need to do this before your new tbird installation has collected any mail. Personally i have my mail folders on my data drive rather than default location on the system drive.

Assuming you are using pop3 the collect mail there is a setting, again in accounts whete you can set how frequently, or even on manual command only to collect mail from the server.

Another useful trick if the laptop is only temporay is to set the account NOT to delete email from the server. That way any mail you dont explicitly delete will be left on the server for the pc to collect when you return..
Regards

Bob

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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby Enrique » Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:53 pm

Hi casita-bonita,
Is there a simple way for Chrissie to sync up her Thunderbird on from PC to Laptop so not needing to copy Folders every time she wants to travel with laptop ?

I would recommend using a Web based email like Gmail, then you have access from any system. You can keep your current accounts and let Gmail collect them .
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby casita-bonita » Sun Jul 21, 2019 5:23 pm

Hi Enrique

What i used to do when i took a laptop travelling was to map a drive fom one device to the other. Then use a tool like syncback to copy all the file differences from the pc data folders to the laptop. Obviously you can configure it to only sync the mail folders or an entire data folder structure. Hey presto complete set of up to date email on the laptop within seconds, and i have a lot of email. Worked like a charm for 13 plus years. Of course if youre using imap this isnt necessary as all the mail is on the server and accessible by any authenticated client, but if chrissie has folders then it'll be pop3.

The only problem with this is that mail sent from the laptop while away will be in it's local sent folder(s) and not accessible by the pc. My workaround for this was to create an additional mailbox on the server called say [email protected] the set the mail accounts on the laptop to automatically bcc any sent mail to it. Then when you get back all the sent mail can be retrieved from this maibox and copied to the appropriate sent folder. Little clunky maybe but achieves the desired result. Obviously much simpler if you only have one mail account in tbird.

BTW, love your sig. It is so true.
Regards

Bob

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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Sun Jul 21, 2019 9:54 pm

Thanks for the info guys - I will give it a go tomorrow. I don't want to copy all the folders over, just 4 that I may need to refer to.

I always check for spam etc on the webmail page before downloading my email , and tho I delete it from the webmail inbox, it stays in the webmail deleted box unless I manually delete it, so as you say c-b, no need to transfer emails back again when I get home !
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby casita-bonita » Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:11 pm

If you simply want to possibly refer to emails when you're away then an alternative is to select the folder then export it to html. What you'll end up with is all the emails as individual files and an additional index html file that list all the individual emails. Then just use a browser to read firstly the index file the click on any mail you want to read.

Did this when we went on vacation this year as i no longer take my laptop away. Yet to find any android app that will read tbird mail files. Export worked a treat for the subset of mails, mainly to do with all the travel bookings in case I needed to reference them while away.
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby casita-bonita » Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:58 am

Have my PC running now. So further to the export mentioned above.

This will be an option if you simply want the email available for reference.

1. Right click on the folder you want to export
2.Select import/export tools
3. Select Export all messages in folder
4. Select the format eg html with attachments
5. OK the warning that they will not be in an importable format, then select the output folder.

You will end up with a folder called 'foldername_date'. Inside this folder you will find an index file and a sub folder of messages. Simple click on the index file then you will get a list of all messages in the sub folder. Simply click on the ones that you want to read.
Regards

Bob

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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby casita-bonita » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:01 am

Going back a couple of posts it appears that rather than copy the mail files to the laptop you could use the import (right click on folder) tool and select 'import mbox file' which will be on your stick. Must admit haven't tried it but one of the import formats should work for you.
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Bob

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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Tue Jul 23, 2019 10:02 am

Update:
Thanks for all the help guys, I now have the required folders on my laptop & I have also stopped it downloading emails automatically.

Yesterday I attempted to do a windows update - there were apparently 5 important ones to get. It didn't complete (don't know why), so I am trying again now - I may be back ;-)
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chrissiehope
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:43 pm

As suspected, the download/install of 5 ipdates failed. Error code 80243004. Tried the link 'for more info' but couldn't make head nor tail of it.
Suggestions ?
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby Enrique » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:38 pm

Hi chrissiehope,
I'm guessing you're on Windows 7.
This pops up a bit on that error.............

https://www.technipages.com/windows-code-80243004-fix
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:16 pm

Thanks Enrique, I'll give that a go :-)
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chrissiehope
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Re: Transferring Thunderbird folders between pc & laptop

Postby chrissiehope » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:31 pm

Well, as the guy in the article said - I've no idea how, but it worked !! Now installing the last of 5, so job done :-)
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