Importing Mail folder from one Thunderbird to another Thunderbird.

[Jim]

On 06/30/2009 03:30 AM, g wrote:
> ~/Jim wrote:
>
>    
>> Copied old Mail folder from FC8 into FC11 thunderbird, and checked all
>>      
> how did you copy them into new thunderbird?
>
> if you copied path of 'Mail' directory, then you will need to copy it into
> your profile directory and replace 'Mail' in new install.
>
> actual *email* folders start in directory _below_ 'Mail'.
>
> in 'Mail' directory, you will find 'Local Folders' and directories for each
> of your email service providers. thunderbird reads below these directories
> for actual email.
>
>    
>> file permissions and they are r/w, Folders are view/modify ,
>>      
> you also have to have directories and files assigned to correct user. that
> is, if you copied them as root, did you 'chown -R jim:jim *'?
>
> also, directories must be 'rwx' to pass thru them.
>
>    
>> but thunderbird still won't read old email and it's there.
>>      
> where? like, give me a path from your profile directory. it should be on an
> order of;
>
>    /home/jim/.thunderbird/????????.default/Mail/Local Folders/
>
> '????????.default' is your profile directory. if you copied your old 'Mail'
> directly to you profile directory, it should work. that is if you did so
> before you started using thunderbird.
>
> to explain further, if before you ever started thunderbird, you copied your
> entire old '~/.thunderbird/' path to your new home directory, everything
> you had setup in old install will carry to new install.
>
> if you copied 'Mail' into your profile directory, then you will have to set
> up your new configurations, but you will have all your email folder structure
> maintained.
>
> last, but most important, you *must* re index your email. to do this, go to
> your profile directory and run these 2 commands with thunderbird closed;
>
> 'rm -f panacea.dat'
> 'rm -fR *.msf'
>
> 'panacea.dat' is main index file for all email files and directories.
> '*.msf' are individual index files for each email folder and subfolder.
>
> when you open thunderbird, these file will be recreated and you will note
> that it will take a few minutes for these files to be built.
>
> one more 'gotcha' is that you must maintain what ever user name you were
> using before and you must have same profile directory name. these 2 are
> used in several files in your profile directory and if they are not correct,
> you could have problems.
>
> remember 'cyoa', cover your own ass, be sure you have a backup made before
> you start mucking around.
>
> something i always do before i play with thunderbird or firefox and just
> for fun every couple of weeks, is i will make a backup of both paths so that
> i have something to fall back on if i have problems.
>
> from my home directory, i run;
> 'cp .mozilla .mozilla.000x'
> 'cp .thunderbird .thunderbird.000x'.
>
> hth.
>
> later.
>
>    
My problem was , when I upgraded from FC8 > FC11 , I burnt the old 
.thunderbird to dvd and it change the permissions to 'read' only .
So what I did I took the old profile folder (8 digit Profile) and copied 
it into the FC11 .thunderbird
and changed all the 'read' files to 'read/write and i'm back in operation.

I learn a lesson there,  Tar the old install before you burn it to cd/dvd .