Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another - SOLVED

Message
Author
User avatar
Falcon
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:34 pm

Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another - SOLVED

#1 Post by Falcon »

Hi,

I have upgraded my laptop to MX Linux 18 and it works very well. I want to convert my main computer to MX as well and part of that is moving all of my Thunderbird address book, email, etc. to the main computer after doing the MX install. From what I read on the Thunderbird forum, this is a simple matter of copying the Thunderbird Profile and putting it back on the computer after the changeover to MX. I found the profile on the Windows computer in the C:/users/Bob/AppData/Thunderbird. All I should need to do is to copy this folder from the Windows OS and then put it into the MX version of Thunderbird.

I decided to experiment by copying the Thunderbird folder to a USB stick and then putting it into the MX on the laptop to see if it worked. Unfortunately, I can't find the Thunderbird folder in the laptop, so I can't replace it. Can someone tell me where this Thunderbird folder is stored in the MX OS? I've done a file search on root, user, and home.

Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Falcon on Sun May 26, 2019 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Gaer Boy
Posts: 859
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2009 6:06 am

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#2 Post by Gaer Boy »

It's in the hidden folder /.thunderbird which you'll find in your home folder. Ctrl-H in Thunar.

Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX, Ryzen 5 5600G, 16GB, 250GB Samsung SSD (GPT), 2x1TB HDD (MBR), MX-21-AHS
Lenovo Thinkpad X220, dual-core i5, 4MB, 120GB Samsung SSD (GPT), MX-21

skidoo
Posts: 753
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:56 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#3 Post by skidoo »

All I should need to do is to copy this folder from the Windows OS and then put it into the MX version of Thunderbird.
Expect files copied from the windows filesystem will bear root ownership in the new location, so followup after the copy operation with

chown -R myuser:myuser /thenewpath/of/my/thunderbirdprofile

User avatar
Falcon
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#4 Post by Falcon »

Gaer Boy,

Thanks for the information. I was able to copy the files into the MX /.thunderbird folder. When I restarted Thunderbird, my emails and address book were in place. However, I ran into another problem. I no longer have an "Events and Tasks" tab. It was there before I copied the files. Either during the copy or when I restarted the program, a message popped up that stated something like "Lightning is not compatible with this version of the program". It gave me the opportunity to look for a compatible program, but it was not able to find one. Any ideas on what happened when I replaced the files in the Thunderbird folder?

User avatar
Falcon
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#5 Post by Falcon »

skidoo,

I'm really new to Linux so there are a lot of things that I don't understand as yet. Can you explain what the various terms in the command are and where should I be in the file structure when I execute the command?

chown -R myuser:myuser /thenewpath/of/my/thunderbirdprofile

Thanks.

User avatar
mxer
Posts: 211
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:09 am

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#6 Post by mxer »

chown -R myuser:myuser /thenewpath/of/my/thunderbirdprofile
chown = change the owner of files
-R = recursively
myuser:myuser = your user name & user group
/thenewpath/of/my/thunderbirdprofile = where you just put the files
(FOSS, Linux, & BSD since 1999)

User avatar
Gaer Boy
Posts: 859
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2009 6:06 am

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#7 Post by Gaer Boy »

1. Since Thunderbird opened your emails correctly, you don't need to follow skidoo's instructions re file permissions.

2. Which version of Thunderbird do you have? I'm currently on 52.9.1 and Lightning runs fine. I've used it through various versions over the last 10 years and not had a problem.

Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX, Ryzen 5 5600G, 16GB, 250GB Samsung SSD (GPT), 2x1TB HDD (MBR), MX-21-AHS
Lenovo Thinkpad X220, dual-core i5, 4MB, 120GB Samsung SSD (GPT), MX-21

User avatar
Falcon
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#8 Post by Falcon »

Skidoo,

Thank you for the information.

Gaer Boy,

I'm using the Thunderbird that comes pre-packaged with MX which is the same one that you are using. I think that the problem is that the MX version is 64-bit, but the version that is on my desktop computer is 32-bit and it's version 60.6.1. Since I have a 64-bit computer, I'm not sure why the Thunderbird program is 32-bit. When I copied the contents of the Thunderbird folder on the Windows desktop computer over to the MX laptop and then started Thunderbird on the laptop I got a window with the message that "Lightning is not compatible with this version of the program". This seems to be caused by the profile.ini file. After the error message shows up and the program continues to load, I get all of the emails displayed from my Windows desktop and my address book is intact...but no calendar. If I go back and replace the profile.ini file with the original version, then Thunderbird starts fine and the calendar function is available, but no desktop emails or address book. There seems to be some incompatibility issue between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the programs, or some differences between the version 52 on MX and the version 60 on my desktop.

User avatar
fehlix
Developer
Posts: 10311
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:09 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#9 Post by fehlix »

Falcon wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 7:37 am After the error message shows up and the program continues to load, I get all of the emails displayed from my Windows desktop and my address book is intact...but no calendar.
Yes, that's normal. Because the lightening calendar is provided through an add-on plugin, the local user installed plugin residing within the profile folder takes precedence over the system wide plugin. As the old local calendar plugin is version incompatible it is disabled, you need to open the Add-On/plugin-page and remove/delete/uninstall the disabled old calender "lightening" plugin. After restarting TB you shall see the global plugin be available and potentially already enabled.
Note: If still the calendar is not showing up, their is an alternative way to enable the calendar by manual coping the global lighenting plugin into the thunderbird profile folder, but this might not be needed.

Note: If you copied as normal user from the Windows partition there is nothing to worry about root ownership as the ownership is determined by the write process when copying the folder into your /home - folder.
:puppy:
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

User avatar
Falcon
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:34 pm

Re: Moving Thunderbird Profile from one computer to another

#10 Post by Falcon »

fehlix,

Thanks for the info. I will look into this as soon as I get some time this afternoon.

Post Reply

Return to “Software / Configuration”