I'm just trying to untangle my administrator's install of T/Bird Portable. Its a teal mess of folders - not just the ones I see on a fresh install.
Also there is at least one corrupt set of files.
If I freeze her old install and make a new one which files or folders should I move across to keep her existing mail records - looks like some are stored in "local folders" and some with the profile of the three email addresses she uses from this install.
Also ho do I get the new install to "see" the copied over files?
If there is n FAQ please point me to it - I have looked - honest!
Thanks in advance all
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PS - i have tried importing an edited copy of the "profile" directory from the old install - odd in that it "sees" the old address book in the new install but not any of the email history
Again, all help welcome
Andy Cawdell
Here's some info you could use:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder_-_Thunderbird
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_folders_in_the_profile_-_Thunderbird
Thunderbird should see the mail as long as it is in the right place (assuming that it isn't part of the corruption you mentioned).
Basically, if you move the entire profile to the new installation, you should have everything available, including the address book, all mail, rules, and so on.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Hi - and thanks - that has moved me along - all the addresses are working now with some if the history but some of the history is missing.
I'd like to have a look at the old profiles but cannot find "profilemanager" - does this exist as a .exe files somewhere?
Andy Cawdell
ThunderbirdPortable is intended to have only one profile. There is no simple way to activate or use a different profile. If you want to have two profiles, you can have one named "profile2" for instance, and swap them (while ThunderbirdPortable is CLOSED) by renaming the existing "profile" folder to "profile1" and then renaming "profile2" as "profile". Obviously, this is a real pain in the butt.
Alternately, you can have two installations of ThunderbirdPortable, each with its own profile. You can't have both running at the same time.
On Thunderbird itself (if you run the non-portable version), you get the profilemanager by starting Thunderbird with the parameter profilemanager as in "thunderbird -profilemanager".
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Ah ha! and is that why it barfed when I changed a name then?
By barfed I mean it dumped the email from one account when I changed the mail server and email address
Andy Cawdell
Treat her nicely and she'll be good.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Indeed!
And are the mail files in profiles all *.msf?
Andy Cawdell
The .msf file is the index of the mail folder having the same name. It also keeps the sort order (by username, date, etc) and ascending or descending. You can eliminate the .msf files and Thunderbird will rebuild them (but you will lose the sort info and have to respecify).
For a time, when I backed up my mail, I did it without the .msf files just to save on the copying of the files. After a while, I didn't bother excluding them because the hassle of the .msf files was worth it compared to reestablishing sort orders for each of the mail folders.
As a side note about .msf files, when you delete an email, it stays where it is, but gets marked for deletion. When you "compact" the email folder, the mail is actually deleted and a new .msf file created.
You might consider deleting all of the .msf files. If they are part of the corruption, then they could be hiding the related mail. Thunderbird will just make new .msf files.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
With the program MozBackup you can solve your problem. Please download at first the portable version ZIP version (no install) on your computer. After starting MozBackup you create a backup of the profile of your old Thunderbird program. For the creation of the backup you only select the component "E-Mails" (for the case that you only want to backup your E-Mails). Then you close and restart MozBackup again. Now you select the point of a recovery of the profile, which you created immediately before. Of course you must select your new Thunderbird installation.
In addition, you can select multiple components (ie not just the component "E-Mails") for the backup and the following restoring with MozBackup.
Hi
Thanks for that - tried that and did not find the remains of the message base - may be T/Bird deleted it as part of the corruption process - I'm going to have to restore a few backups!
Andy Cawdell
Certainly is a prerequisite for a backup and restore of the Thunderbird profile, that the respective components of the profile (emails, address books, bookmarks, History, Cookies, Saved passwords, etc.) are still intact.
We first consider the case of a backup of the profile of an old Thunderbird installation. Afterwards we restore this profile in a new Thunderbird installation. This procedure corresponds exactly to your problem situation. To this end, we assume that the installation paths are as follows:
Finally we consider the case of a backup of the profile of only one existing Thunderbird installation. Afterwards we restore this profile in a same Thunderbird installation. The procedure is the same as described above. Only in No. 1.d and 2.d you choose the same path for the Thunderbird profile. So if you've installed Thunderbird in X:\ThunderbirdPortable, then select for the Thunderbird profile the path X:\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile.
Thanks - all sorted now
Andy Cawdell
Of course, you should not forget that with the program MozBackup - as generally with any backup tool - it is not possible, a damaged Thunderbird/Firefox profile to restore properly. Therefore, the optimal solution is probably that you create for example on every day a backup of your intact Firefox/Thunderbird profile. Older backups you can then delete (for example backups that are older than one week).
With such a backup strategy you only lose the data, which are between the time of the last backup and restore from this backup created.
A very interesting and high quality backup program is called "Acronis True Image Home 2012". I've been using it for several years and am very satisfied. With this program you can create from both individual data as well as the entire disk (here in the form of an image) a backup. However, this program is not free.