Moving Thunderbird from XP to Windows 8

[Lee]

My second hand desktop is sluggishly running xp, so I decided to upgrade
and bought a laptop that comes with Windows 8. It's been sitting in the
box for the past 3-4 weeks because I dread moving everything over!
Particularly TB. The few times I've done it, it's always seemed to take
several days and multiple attempts to get the folders and filters to
work correctly.

Can anyone point me towards step by step instructions? I've been
searching and found bits and pieces, but in no coherent sequence.

Also, a new to me dilemma. I think I may want to run TB on both the
desktop and the laptop. At least until I get used to the laptop and
Windows 8. (Old dog, new tricks. Ugh). Is there a way to synch them? I
am thinking for incoming email, I might be OK if I set it up to leave
email on the server for several days so it'll download on both?

[The Real Bev]

The problem is that once you read it you can't download it with another
machine without disabling and then re-enabling pop between reads.

--
Cheers, Bev
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince
parasites that they are victims." --Thomas Sowell

[Ken Whiton]

*-* On Mon, 08 Jul 2013, at 22:02:34 -0400,
*-* In Article <2oOdnYDi-Kyo8kbM...@mozilla.org>,
*-* Lee wrote
*-* About Moving Thunderbird from XP to Windows 8

> My second hand desktop is sluggishly running xp, so I decided to
> upgrade and bought a laptop that comes with Windows 8. It's been
> sitting in the box for the past 3-4 weeks because I dread moving
> everything over! Particularly TB. The few times I've done it, it's
> always seemed to take several days and multiple attempts to get the
> folders and filters to work correctly.

> Can anyone point me towards step by step instructions? I've been
> searching and found bits and pieces, but in no coherent sequence.

On the laptop:

1. Install Thunderbird (new installation, from scratch).

2. Open the newly-installed Thunderbird, but don't set up any
accounts. Just close it immediately after opening. This will
cause it to create a profile.

On the desktop:

1. With Thunderbird closed, navigate to your Thunderbird profile.
If you don't know where that is, see:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

2. Don't open the profile folder. Instead, from its parent
(Profile) folder copy the profile folder (normally named
xxxxxxxx.default) to a USB drive.

On the laptop again:

1. With Thunderbird closed, copy the _contents_ of the profile
folder from the USB drive into the profile folder that was
created when you installed and opened Thunderbird. The KB
profile folder page linked above hasn't been updated for
Windows 8, but the location is the same as for Vista and 7.

2. Open Thunderbird and all your settings, data, etc. should be
right there waiting for you to use.

> Also, a new to me dilemma. I think I may want to run TB on both the
> desktop and the laptop. At least until I get used to the laptop and
> Windows 8. (Old dog, new tricks. Ugh). Is there a way to synch them?
> I am thinking for incoming email, I might be OK if I set it up to
> leave email on the server for several days so it'll download on
> both?

That should work OK for incoming e-mail, but if you keep copies
of e-mails you send it won't work for them.

Ken Whiton
--
FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: kenw...@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)

[Ken Whiton]

*-* On Mon, 08 Jul 2013, at 20:28:19 -0700,
*-* In Article <cLidnTzmK8LOHkbM...@mozilla.org>,
*-* The Real Bev wrote
*-* About Re: Moving Thunderbird from XP to Windows 8

> On 07/08/2013 07:02 PM, Lee wrote:

>> My second hand desktop is sluggishly running xp, so I decided to
>> upgrade and bought a laptop that comes with Windows 8. It's been
>> sitting in the box for the past 3-4 weeks because I dread moving
>> everything over! Particularly TB. The few times I've done it, it's
>> always seemed to take several days and multiple attempts to get the
>> folders and filters to work correctly.

>> Can anyone point me towards step by step instructions? I've been
>> searching and found bits and pieces, but in no coherent sequence.

>> Also, a new to me dilemma. I think I may want to run TB on both the
>> desktop and the laptop. At least until I get used to the laptop and
>> Windows 8. (Old dog, new tricks. Ugh). Is there a way to synch
>> them? I am thinking for incoming email, I might be OK if I set it
>> up to leave email on the server for several days so it'll download
>> on both?

> The problem is that once you read it you can't download it with
> another machine without disabling and then re-enabling pop between
> reads.

Not necessarily. I've never had any problem re-downloading
previously downloaded e-mail that I've left on the server. Since you
use gmail I'm guessing that what you're describing is a gmail thing,
while I use the e-mail provided by my ISPs. I notice that Lee has a
yahoo e-mail address, so he/she will have to test and see which way
yahoo functions.

[The Real Bev]

On 07/08/2013 08:28 PM, The Real Bev wrote:

> On 07/08/2013 07:02 PM, Lee wrote:
>
>> Also, a new to me dilemma. I think I may want to run TB on both the
>> desktop and the laptop. At least until I get used to the laptop and
>> Windows 8. (Old dog, new tricks. Ugh). Is there a way to synch them? I
>> am thinking for incoming email, I might be OK if I set it up to leave
>> email on the server for several days so it'll download on both?
>
> The problem is that once you read it you can't download it with another
> machine without disabling and then re-enabling pop between reads.

Someone who apparently doesn't want to post publicly corrected me. I
just wrote him a long response BEFORE I noticed that he used a phony
email address. Rude, that. Not wishing to waste his (or my) valuable
comments, they're included here:

> Lee is not talking about Gmail,
> and what you say is erroneous even for Gmail,
> where the following instead applies:
>
> "Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices"
> <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/47948>

That must be newer than...3 years, say. Unless I can specify how many
days to download (NOT 30) that's kind of undesirable for one of my
accounts (this one, which is public) which gets perhaps 100 messages per
day, the only ones of which I want to download to my tablet are the ones
that I haven't seen on my real machine. Heretofore I just went in and
cleared out this account when I anticipated using a different computer
for a few days but wanted to keep SOME of the mail on my real machine.

I really don't want to keep my gmail on the server, so deleting
everything periodically is OK. And I just found the "delete all" button
on the Samsung Galaxy 'email' application, which the gmail application
lacks, so I'm actually ahead of the game now.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Tell someone you love them today, because life is short.
But scream it at them in Klingon, because life is also
terrifying and confusing." -- D. Moore

[Lee]

Thank you for the list of instructions. I hope to get it set up this
weekend (after procrastinating and not doing it over the long holiday
weekend, ha).

Lee (female variety, <smile>) actually uses email through my cable
company; I just use the Yahoo one when posting online, hoping to reduce
spam.

FWIW, during one of my previous attempts at setting up TB on a new
machine, I set it up to leave messages on the server for several days.
That worked in that the next time I installed and tried again, I still
had messages to download and that seemed to work well.

Thanks again;I appreciate the helpful replies and that no one told me to
go google it. I may be back this weekend with more questions, but at
least I have a starting point.

[Peter]

Have you considered Mozbackup? It's just worked fine for me - XP Pro to
2013 Pro, T'bird and Firefox. The only elements that didn't
satisfactorily transfer were a couple of 'sub address lists'. The
address book was fine though.
Good luck
Peter

[Peter]

[Peter]

[Peter]