From Postbox back to Thunderbird

[jj gd471]

I strongly advise all Postbox "orphans" to read this 2023 post, which is even more pertinent in 2025 :

https://blog.xot.nl/2023/07/23/from-postbox-back-to-thunderbird/index.html

I tested migration to eM Client (which I bought with the 50% discount), it is not worth it.

But migrating to PostBox "parent" is extremely easy and will likely avoid you an additional migration away from eM Client if they do not survive either.

Having more than 20 email accounts, I will regret the "Custom Groups of Accounts" feature in Postbox, but Thunderbird may also add it in a future release, especially if enough PostBox orphans pressure them for it.

Although Thunderbird is formally free, I strongly encourage those migrating to it to make a donation, considering the time it will save you !

Happy New Year 2025

JJ

[Bryan Smith]

Hello Jj,

Thank you for your message of Thu, 2 Jan 2025 00:04:21 -0800 (PST):

I strongly encourage those migrating to it to make a donation, considering the time it will save you !

I wholeheartedly endorse that! As a 'lifetime' user of TBird, I make a donation every year. Imagine if everyone did that!

--
Best regards,
Bryan Smith

[William Cattey]

I too have concluded that migrating to "parent" Thunderbird is the right step for me too.

Here's how my exploration went:

1. First try and remember what drove me out of Apple Mail and into Postbox. I'd been using Postbox for so long, I'd forgotten. So I restarted use of Apple mail and refreshed my memory and the drivers are still all to present in Apple mail:
   1. No keyboard command to go to next unread message.
   2. When keyboard command is used to delete a message within a thread, poor selection of which message to display. Postbox always picked the one I expected. Apple Mail never did.
2. Investigate other clients. I tried out Spark Desktop.
   
   1. There were positive reviews of Spark. I tried it out. I thought it had an interesting approach to manage new incoming messages, and collections of important messages, but when it came time to file a message, I had trouble getting hold of folders in a way that I liked.  Additionally, HTML-only composition with no option found for creating plain text messages was a show-stopper.  To my eye, it seemed like the developers were working hard to catch up to the level of functionality already available in Thunderbird.
      
3. Try out em Client. Too much visual clutter. Too many un-changable differences with how I work with email. Those who like the unique em Client features like them a lot.  They just don't work for me, and I can't turn them off.
   
   1. Conversations -- Thunderbird and Postbox keep threads confined to the current folder. I couldn't cope with seeing a second copy of every reply of mine in a thread, getting pulled in from SENT, and I didn't want that saved copy to be deleted when I deleted the thread.  em Client has conversations, but not threads.
   2. Categories -- Spark inspired me to play with categories, but I simply couldn't cope with seeing email in either inbox or its category tab.  I generally want to work in INBOX and occasionally focus on a category, I don't want to have to go looking into other category tabs for messages I'd normally find in INBOX.
   3. SOOOO much visual clutter!  Apparently my email provider marks messages as "not spam".  I couldn't stop em Client from showing that, highlit in yellow in subject lines.  I think I could have turned off the icons associated by eM Client by default, but had already hit too many show stoppers to bother trying to cut the rest of the noise.
      
4. Try the current version of Thunderbird. Fixed a Postbox issue, and the non-ideal behavior I can cope with.
   1. Postbox kept doing the wrong thing with URLs in messages.  "View all topics" and "Manage members" links from Google Groups NEVER went where they were supposed to in Postbox.  Since Postbox development has ceased, I'm not pursuing it.  Apple Mail, Spark, and Thunderbird followed links like I expected.
   2. Thunderbird indents messages in threads with varying depth depending on who replied to whom.  I got used to just the  single level indent with Postbox and actually prefer it.  This pretty much the only non-ideal behavior for me form Thunderbird that I'm coping with.

Bottom line: Thunderbird is my new default email client.

I hope this report is helpful to others.

-Bill

[Nuttzz]

Hi, do you know if anyone has documented the process of migrating from Postbox to Thunderbird?

I'm not that tech savvy and would love it if someone has listed the steps to do this in a way that an idiot could follow.

Also whilst asking, does the migration to Thunderbird bring across all the folders/sub folders that have been created in Postbox?

Thanks

Nick

[jj gd471]

Importing Postbox Profile into Thunderbird

It is incredibly easy.

First, locate the exact path to your PostBox Profile, using the Finder.
It should be something like :
Users / <yourself> / Library / Application Support / PostboxApp / Profiles / <most_recent_Profile_folder>.default

If you have many locally archived messages, it will be a BIG (several GB) folder.

Note that the Library is by default invisible in MacOS, but you can easily access it the following way :
- click 'Go' in the Finder menu bar, and hold down the 'Option' (Alt) key;
- the Library entry now appears in the Finder > Go menu;
- clicking Library directly opens the hidden User Library folder in a new Finder window;
- go down the hierarchy and create a <Profile> alias once on it;

- migrate this alias to the Desktop.

Then open Thunderbird, and select :
- Tools > Import… > Import from some other Thunderbird profile > Continue
- Choose a profile folder > Continue
- Select the <most_recent_Profile_folder>.default folder alias you created before
…
wait a few minutes
…

Restart Thunderbird

DONE !

You will get all the Accounts from Postbox, all the archived emails, only thing missing AFAIK will be the GROUPS of Accounts you may have created, a Postbox feature not supported in parent Thunderbird.

[Jonathan G. Westerling]

Probably worth noting that there are version limitations for the import to work properly.

My version of Postbox is 6.1 (running on an older MacOS and laptop) and after importing into Thunderbird 115.15, all of my email was imported and was searchable, but the content of each message was not displayed when I opened them.

Its not a huge deal: I just retain Postbox in "offline" mode to reference legacy email.

Hope this is helpful - J

[Nuttzz]

I have downloaded Thunderbird and attempted to import my Postbox (which includes 8 email accounts) and it has failed.

The message states that more information may be found in the 'Error Console' but I don't know where to find this (having never used Thunderbird before).

[jj gd471]

I suppose the « Error console » is the one you can find at :
Thunderbird > Tools > Development tools > Error console

[jj gd471]

But I am a bit surprised by the path of your source directory : 

D:\PostboxApp\Profiles\obb937m0.default, obviously coming from a PC, while I did import on a Mac.

Check what Thunderbird version you installed, and its compatibility with your Windows version

[jj gd471]

And as Jonathan G. Westerling mentioned, check also your Postbox source version.

Mine was 7.0.64 on MacOS Sonoma 14.7.2.

You may have to upgrade to the latest Postbox BEFORE migrating to Thunderbird 128.5.2esr

[Nuttzz]

The location address of my copy of Postbox was correct, I moved it to my D: drive as this has a lot more storage space available (my Postbox file is over 225Gb)

My version of Postbox is: 7.0.65 (32-bit)

My version of Thunderbird is: 128.5.2esr (64-bit)

However, after closing Thunderbird down and re-opening it has started to import the Postbox file.

What I have noticed quite quickly is that hardly any of my 'sub-folders' which I have under 'Local Folders' have come through (I have over 2,000 sub-folders in my Postbox program, and rely heavily on this being useable going forwards.  I'm not sure if they are still coming through though, and will keep an eye on this (it may still be importing, not sure).

Also, in Postbox I had all my 'accounts' hidden and only 'Local Folders' in the Account column, can this be replicated in Thunderbird?

As others have said, there is a feel of Postbox in Thunderbird, but my experience is only of having used Postbox before and never using Thunderbird, so it all looks 'less refined' to my eyes.

Any way I'll persevere with it and hope it steadily slots in to place.

...and yes I have donated :-)

[jj gd471]

There is no benefit to copying the source Postbox profile in your D: drive, since the copy of its data will be made INTO THE THUNDERBIRD PROFILE, which could be anywhere.

I would suggest you follow exactly my migration steps, which may, or may not, solve your problem.

[Nuttzz]

HI, thanks for your further input.

I'm not sure what is meant by  "no benefit to copying the source Postbox profile in your D: drive" as I only figured that this was the file I would need to copy as it was the place where everything is stored (its a huge 225Gb file)

When I try to find the folder you refer to on C: drive all I can find is  Users / nick / AppData / Roaming / PostboxApp / Profiles / <obb937m0.default   however this folder only has aprox 1.6Gb of data in it, so not sure if it is correct.

Further to this, I guess something has gone wrong in my attempt to import Postbox as there are thousands of 'Sub-folders' missing from my Local Folders.  As mentioned previously in Postbox I have message filters set to move incoming emails in to Sub-folders that I have created in the Local Folders area.

Also I note that in Postbox I have new emails this morning, whereas in Thunderbird I have non since yesterday afternoon (I have clicked on Get new messages for all Accounts), and the status on the bottom of the program states that I am online.

Sadly I'm not sure that me and Thunderbird are going to get on very well :-/

[William Cattey]

In a sense, my migration back to Thunderbird was made easy because I kept all my folders via IMAP on the service provider's site.

So I just pretended I was starting from scratch, started up Thunderbird and just "Set Up Another Account" for all my existing email accounts.

If you kept your archives locally, then you do need to either point Thunderbird at your Postbox profile, or copy it over.

Actually, I suspect the reason why you don't see your sub-folders is that Thunderbird wants you to subscribe to a folder in IMAP before it shows it to you. Nowadays new accounts seem to be configured with Settings->Account Settings->[Each account you have]->Synchronization and Storage->Message Synchornizing-> [x] Keep messages in all folders for this account on this computer.

Otherwise, when you click on [Advanced] you get a tree of accounts and folders with a check box to set to subscribe to the folder and make it visible.

Give this a look and see if it makes sense/helps.

-Bill

[Nuttzz]

Hi Bill

Would I be correct in thinking you are using a Mac? Those locations for storage do not appear on my Windows version.  However I think you are referring to:

Account Settings / [Each account you have] / Copies & Folders / When sending messages, automatically / Place a copy in ..... etc..

I'd agree with this logic if it weren't for the fact that some of the local folders have come through; its as though it started bringing them in then got bored and stopped.  There are roughly 200 local folders that have been imported, then nothing more.

Is there a way to copy all the folders directly in to the Thunderbird file location from Postbox.  I did something similar when I bought a new PC, I copied the files from my old PC to my new one, just not sure if the same logic would work from Postbox to Thunderbird.

Also as mentioned I am not receiving emails in to all my accounts, however I have noticed that one account (the default account) is still receiving emails.  I have checked the account settings against all the accounts (14 of them) and I'm sure they are set up correctly.  I certainly am not receiving any error messages suggesting there is anything untoward.

Cheers

[William Cattey]

I am on a Mac, yes.

Alas, I don't know how to kick off a copy.

14 accounts? WOW! That sounds like a non-trivial migration process.  It is possible that TBird got lost with the enormity of it.  I'm not sure what to recommend.

Perhaps someone with a pointier wizard's hat than I with regards to TBird can help here.

-Bill

[jj gd471]

As I explained in the original post of this thread, I am on a Mac too with more than 20 email accounts.

Following the steps I detailed in my second post, it was incredibly easy to migrate.

But obviously, the migration on a PC may be different in some subtle way.

Only a PC user who migrated successfully to Thunderbird parent could help to refine the migration guide for a PC.

But I would bet it will work easily on a PC too, with the proper amendments, since the Mac "minority" is usually the one left with problems...

[Nuttzz]

Really grateful for peoples attempt to assist me in migrating from Postbox to Thunderbird.

I appreciate that it appears that most here are on Mac software, but I wonder if I pose the following question if someone may have an opinion?

Looking in my Postbox directory there is a large folder where my emails appear to be stored:

D:\PostboxApp\Profiles\obb937m0.default\Mail\Local Folders

This folder is approx. 225Gb in size, do you think it would be possible to simply copy this folder and place it in the same location within Thunderbird and hope that Thunderbird accepts it as a replacement for the one it created (the one that appears to have failed on my import)?

There are other folders which also have emails in them, but these are the mail folders for the email before I direct the emails to be stored in 'Local' folders, and are not important (see pic).

As an aside to the above question, assuming this is thought to work, before I do this I need to change where my PC is storing the emails.  When I set up Postbox I placed it and any emails on to my D: drive as this is 2Tb in size.  Thunderbird, despite being installed on D: drive, is storing the emails on C: drive, under:

C:\Users\nick\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\qqcvmzm5.default-esr

I do not have the space to allow Thunderbird to store the emails on my much smaller SSD C: drive.

Any/all thoughts would be appreciated, otherwise I think I am going to have to give up on Thunderbird and hope and pray that my aging copy of Postbox keeps working until I can think of an alternative.

Thanks again for the help thus far.

[jj gd471]

Not sure I understand your question, but from a migration point of view, it is the "obb937m0.default" forlder you are supposed to indicate as source profile to Thunderbird for it to import Postbox data.

If you have a storage capacity issue, solve it properly BEFORE attempting to migrate.

It is ALWAYS a bad idea to attempt to solve 2 different problems at the same time, especially when one is not too sure about the process and hard constraints.

[Nuttzz]

When I started the migration process I did point it to the correct location where Postbox stores the emails; it started fine, but only managed to import several hundred sub-folders before seeming to give up (see original pic).

Its not a storage space issue as such, its just that like most PC's shipped today my PC has a 500Gb SSD C: drive and a much larger 2Tb  non SSD drive (D: drive).

Most programs try to store all supplementary data in to the 'User' folder which is typically on the C: drive.  As mentioned my Postbox folder is in excess of 225Gb alone, which my C: drive does not have the space for.

When I set up Postbox I put in on the D: drive and luckily for me Postbox also stores all received emails with its own folder (or it certainly does in my case).  However Thunderbird does not appear to do this, and stores the emails in a folder on the C: drive, ie.  C:\Users\nick\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\qqcvmzm5.default-esr (despite the actual program being on the D: drive).

Hence why I asked if it was possible to force Thunderbird to store incoming emails in to its own program.

It would seem that I am actually no nearer to getting a resolution, and I'm guessing that from the general silence from others in this Postbox group, I am probably asking for something that isn't possible to achieve.

[jj gd471]

This tutorial may (or may not) answer your questions :

https://www.easeus.com/computer-instruction/thunderbird-storage-location.html