Combining mail from two profiles - SeaMonkey

This article was written for Thunderbird but also applies to Mozilla Suite.

There may be some situations when you want to manually combine the mail, address books, message filters, or perhaps other files from two separate Thunderbird or Mozilla Suite profiles. These could be two profiles on the same computer or two profiles on different computers. In the procedure given below, Profile1 indicates your primary profile, with mail, address books, etc. being moved from Profile2 to Profile1.

Make a backup and have a look inside the profiles

1. Locate and make a temporary backup copy of Profile1. You'll be making changes to this profile and can damage it if things go wrong, so it's important to make a backup copy.

2. Familiarize yourself with the contents of both profile folders and how they're organized. You'll see that each of your mail accounts has its own subfolder in the "Mail" (or "ImapMail") folder in the profile folder, typically named something like "pop.myisp.com" or "mail.myemailservice.net". Inside each account subfolder are your mail files, with names such as "Inbox", "Sent", "Drafts", etc.; these are the files that contain your actual messages. Each will have a corresponding index file with the ".msf" extension, such as "Inbox.msf", "Sent.msf", and "Drafts.msf". There may also be folders named with the ".sbd" extension, which usually represent mail folders that contain one or more subfolders. Other miscellaneous files may include "msgFilters.dat", "popstate.dat", and " training.dat" (see here here for more information on those files).

Prepare the profiles

3. If Profile2 has accounts that you want to use in Profile1 for downloading and sending mail, recreate these accounts in Thunderbird using Profile1. (To start up Thunderbird with Profile1, you may need to use the Profile Manager.) To create each new account in Profile1, go to "Tools -> Account Settings", click on the "Add Account" button, and fill in the account settings as needed.

4. Compact folders for all accounts in Profile1 and exit Thunderbird. (It's not absolutely necessary to compact folders here, or in Step 5, but it is recommended because it will tidy up the mailbox files and reduce the file sizes.)

5. Restart Thunderbird using Profile2, compact folders for all accounts, and exit Thunderbird.

Decide what files to copy and where to put them

6. Decide which files you will copy from Profile2 to Profile1.

a. If you have recreated an account from Profile2 in Profile1 (see step 3 above): copy ALL the files inside the account subfolder: the mail files, the ".msf" files, the ".sbd" folders and their contents, and the miscellaneous files ("msgFilterRules.dat", "popstate.dat", etc.).

b. If you are not recreating any Profile2 accounts in Profile1: try copying everything inside the account subfolder (the mail files, the ".msf files", and the ".sbd" folders and their contents) EXCEPT the the miscellaneous files ("msgFilterRules.dat", "popstate.dat", etc.). It's actually not necessary to copy the ".msf" files, as they will be rebuilt automatically, but it doesn't hurt to do so.

c. A steamlined alternative to 6b: copy the mail files ONLY (and NOT the ".msf" files, the ".sbd" folders, or the miscellaneous other files).

7. Decide where you will put these files in Profile1.

a. If you have recreated an account from Profile2 in Profile1 (see steps 3 & 6a above) and if you have not already started using this account in Profile1 (in other words, you have not sent or received any mail): put the Profile2 files in the corresponding account subfolder in Profile1.

b. If you are not using Local Folders in Profile1, you can put the Profile2 files here.

c. You can put the Profile2 files into any Profile1 account subfolder. However, if you do this make sure to rename any Profile2 mail files if there is a name conflict with existing mail files in Profile1. For instance, you can rename Profile2's "Inbox" as "Inbox2", "Sent" as "Sent2", etc.

d. It's also possible to move the Profile2 files into a pre-existing ".sbd" folder in Profile1, but you will need to be careful about naming conflicts as described in 7c, above.

Copy the files over

8. Copy the files from Profile2 to Profile1.

9. Restart Thunderbird using Profile1. Verify that the mail files you copied over from Profile2 now appear in the folders pane and that you can view individual messages.

10. Drag and drop messages/folders in the folders pane as desired. Delete any folders that you no longer need.

11. When finished, again compact folders for all accounts. Exit Thunderbird, restart using Profile1, and double-check to make sure that all the mail you brought over from Profile2 is in fact where you expect to find it.

12. To move address books from Profile2 to Profile1, export each address book from Profile2 as an LDIF file and then import each into Profile1. See Moving address books between profiles for further details.

All done

13. When you're confident that you've successfully brought the mail, address books, and/or other files from Profile2 to Profile1, delete the temporary backup of Profile1.