Moving your profile folder

Overview

The following all involve the same basic steps and are thus explained together on this page:

• Changing the location of your Thunderbird profile folder
• Migrating Thunderbird mail, address books, and settings from one computer to another
• Migrating mail, address books, and settings from Netscape 7 to Thunderbird
• Migrating mail, address books, and settings from the Mozilla Suite to Thunderbird
• Manually restoring a profile that you backed up previously

In each case, you will be moving the contents of an existing profile folder in Thunderbird, Netscape, or Mozilla to a different location, so do not proceed until you have found on your computer the profile folder whose contents you want to move. Read this if you are having trouble finding or identifying your Thunderbird profile folder.

Five basic steps are then required:

1. Create a new Thunderbird profile

If you are launching Thunderbird for the first time it will automatically create a default profile for you, in the default location. If you are not using Thunderbird for the first time or if you wish to create a new profile in a location of your own choice, you should instead use the Profile Manager. Once you have created the new profile, make sure to exit Thunderbird before continuing.

2. Copy the contents of the old profile to the new one

Copy the entire contents of your existing Thunderbird/Netscape/Mozilla profile folder, including all subfolders, to the profile folder you created in Step 1. If the profile was created with an older version of Thunderbird or with Netscape/Mozilla Suite, where the profile folder ends with ".slt", then copy only the contents of the .slt folder but do not include the .slt folder itself. If you are prompted about whether you want to overwrite files in the new profile folder, select "Yes." (Note: if you are attempting to migrate a profile from Windows to Mac or vice versa, you might want to have a look at this forum thread about transferring files between these different OS's.)

3. Edit the "prefs.js" file

Next, edit the "prefs.js" file to reflect the new profile folder location and name. Find prefs.js in your new profile folder, open it with a text editor such as Notepad, and replace all instances of the old profile folder location and name with the new profile folder location and name. For example, replace all instances of "C:\\Documents and Settings\\WindowsUserAccountName\\Application Data\\Thunderbird\\Profiles\\********.default" (normal location of the default profile on Windows XP) with "C:\\NewLocation\\NewProfile" (the new profile location). When finished, save the prefs.js file.

Note: It is crucial that you get this pathname correct. If you are migrating the profile to a different drive (for example from drive "C" to drive "D"), make sure to indicate this change when editing prefs.js. Likewise, if using Windows and you want to migrate the profile to a location whose pathname includes the name of a Windows user account different from the Windows user account under which the profile was originally created, make sure that you edit prefs.js to reflect this as well. Windows users must also use the double "\\" in the pathname.

4. Edit the "chrome.rdf" file

Repeat Step 3 with the "chrome.rdf" file located in the "chrome" subfolder in your profile folder, especially if you use themes or extensions.

5. Edit all "Uninstall" files

Repeat Step 3 with all extension "Uninstall" files located in the "extensions" subfolder in your profile folder, especially if you want to uninstall any extensions later. Example in your profile folder: "extensions\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\uninstall\Uninstall"

After completing the above five steps, launch Thunderbird and verify that your mail and settings have been migrated succesfully. If not, then exit Thunderbird, go back to Step 3 and check carefully to make sure that all instances of the old profile folder location have been replaced correctly with the new profile folder location.

Still not working?

If you have done all the above steps to migrate successfully but Thunderbird's interface (such as toolbar buttons) looks strange or the application does not function properly, it could be due to interference from previously installed themes or extensions that you migrated along with your mail files, address books, and settings. In this case, you can try exiting Thunderbird, deleting the contents of the "chrome" and "extensions" subfolders in your profile folder, and restarting Thunderbird. [1]