How Do I Move Thunderbird to a New Computer?

✴️ Moving email from one machine to another is a snap when you're using Thunderbird as your email program. I'll show you how.

Thunderbird stores all your information in what it calls a “profile” — a folder that contains everything. All you need do to move your Thunderbird email is to locate the profile on the old machine and copy it in its entirety to the profile location on the new machine.

Chapters
0:00 Moving Thunderbird
0:13 Thunderbird is easy to move
1:45 The secret word – Profile
2:42 Thunderbird on Windows 10 Home
3:06 Step 1 Shut down Thunderbird
3:24 Find your Thunderbird folder
3:59 Zip up your profile
4:59 Copy to thumb drive
5:53 Install Thunderbird on new computer
8:07 Find new Thunderbird folder
8:30 Transfer profile files to new computer
9:50 Start Thunderbird and everything is there

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[petermantell]

Finally! Someone who speaks clearly and eloquently and at a speed I can keep up with lol many thanks Leo.

[TheWoodak]

Such a helpful video. Just changed to a newer laptop and was dreading re-installing Thunderbird. However, followed your easy steps and I now have Thunderbird running like a dream on my new PC with everything just the way I had it before. Great work.

[Davethreshold]

THANK YOU! Somehow, I lost track of the ini file and it worked. I had to reset Windows and this is the first time I did not lose ALL my emails. Super-kudos to you. ❤😎

[noexcuses]

04-30-2023 Leo - this has to be the most clear and simple to understand of all other videos on this topic. Thank You a BUNCH !!!

[psanders]

Leo, I played this video and was ecstatic to discover that, unlike most instructional videos, actually worked! You spoke clearly, didn't get in a hurry, didn't assume anything, and your instructions were clear, and best of all, it WORKED! Thank you so much! I would never have been able to do this by myself! Great job!

[williamfaze]

Thank you! I've spent hours of frustration trying to install and configure Thunderbird on my new lap-top, and finally had success!

I have been using Thunderbird for decades now, across three or four devices--I find it the easiest way to compose, read, and store email. But moving archived files to a new computer is always a hassle. Your video certainly helped. Two things worth mentioning:

1) The compressing and copying of the profile folders took much longer than your video would indicate--about ten minutes, I believe, at least in my case.

2) If--like me--you have downloaded and installed Thunderbird; attempted to configure it, and failed; then subsequently uninstalled it, the profile folders are not deleted, but remain, and have to be overwritten when you try to install it a second time.

Back in the day, I got pretty proficient at locating and manipulating files in Window XP and 7; I skipped 8; and I never did become comfortable with 10. Window 11 . . . ?

[Song-Stories-and-Stars]

Thank you! I just transferred Thunderbird from my old laptop to my new one. Very grateful for your clear, simple instructions.

[adamsohmer]

Fantastic! You make it clear, easy to follow, and most important, fool proof. Thank you!

[tomcauley]

Thanks so much, Leo. This worked perfectly for switching from my old X1 Carbon to my new one, It took a long time because my profile was 137GB, Also my biggest thumb drive is formatted in FAT 32 so some of the files were too big. I ended up using a 500 gig NTFS USB disk drive transferring to the Downloads folder on the new computer. There were a few times when the transfer from there to Thunderbird stopped but I was patient and waited maybe 15 minutes for it to start moving again each time. With over 54, 000 files this happened with 7 left and then with 2 left, You made this work way easier than the last new laptop 5 years ago. I still miss Windows (Vista) Mail which I was able to use for many years after Vista was gone using a bit of a hack that worked until Windows 10, I miss Windows Mail,

[David-ssnl]

I had to move my 6 T-bird email accounts to my new computer and it took me about 20 minutes with your video. Thanks so much!

[kmans]

Leo . . excellent tutorial and presentation. I have to admit, that I tried following you step-by-step about 5 times and couldn't get it to work. Then I noticed a reply you made in one of the comments regarding allowing file name extensions (I was not seeing profile.ini). I changed the default in File Explorer and that solved that issue. So I was now able to copy/paste both the profile and profile.ini.

I encountered one deviation from your instructions. My new PC did not permit me to 'drag & drop' the copied files from my USB to the Thunderbird location (accessed via %APPDATA%). However, if I instead did the 'Copy & Paste' into that Thunderbird location - - Bingo! It worked and everything is good to go.

So, thank you Leo, and perhaps these comments may be useful to others that had difficulty.

[imnotabiologist]

Thank you so much Leo! I was really close but I found so many bad instructions out there... There are so many talented techs out there but it’s rare to find one who is a good ‘splainer. You are a gem!!

[snipkin]

Leo - thank you from me as well! It just worked first time. I'm so pleased! Note: it took me ages (~ 30 min) to create the zip file because I had so many local folders with many emails. Important to close down Thunderbird whilst creating the zip file.

[Swampdog]

Fantastic Guide
Just upgraded my machine from Windows 10 to 11 and had multiple accounts, this guide was easy to follow and has everything as it was set up!

[stiggy]

Hi Leo. I have been putting off replacing an old failing computer because of not wanting to lose years of mail. Having just watched your tutorial I think time to upgrade. Thank you Sir.

[normanshelley]

Excellent!! After three days of faffing about trying to get passwords right this worked first time and everything was spot on. Thank you very much.

[brainfreeze]

I've been using TB for nearly 20 years. Thanks for this video, learned many things.

[petesimmering]

Thank you so very much for this tutorial! Trying to set up my new PC build and was stumbling over this Thunderbird data issue. I tried and failed three times, but your video walked me right through the process. I did basically the same thing, however, I moved my old SSD into the new case and just used the file manager to carry out the tasks from one drive to the other.

[rwgreene]

This move is so easy I would never have figured it out. I would keep looking for the "gotcha". Previous experience was with Outlook from one machine to another. Thanks for the tip.

[pomonabill]

This (your) method and explanation worked like a DREAM!!!!
Thank you SO much for the post!!!