Is there any way to change the mailbox location?

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Gwaihir
Posts: 95
Joined: March 23rd, 2009, 11:04 am
Location: Cambridge UK

Is there any way to change the mailbox location?

Post by Gwaihir »

I recently had a problem with my PC and had to restore a system partition image that I'd backed up a couple of months ago. Unfortunately I forgot to save the Thunderbird mailboxes so lost several weeks messages permanently, and also calendar settings.

Is there a way to have the data currently stored in C:\Users\mjt\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\rbjdxawv.Mike\Mail\ on a separate partition or hard drive to prevent this happening again?
Best regards,

Gwaihir.
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Is there any way to change the mailbox location?

Post by tanstaafl »

Yes. You can safely change the location for the entire profile or for individual accounts. Its risky to change where ..\Mail expects to find "Local Folders" and any POP accounts.

I suggest you move the entire profile to a new drive. The safest way is to click on about:profiles in help -> more troubleshooting information , use the create a new profile button and then "choose folder" to create a new profile on another drive, exit Thunderbird, copy the contents of the old profile to that new location (do not copy the old directory for the profile, just copy its contents!!!) , and then go back into about:profiles and use it to delete the old profile. The reason for doing it this way is that it will update profiles.ini for you. Its possible to edit that file yourself but its error prone.

I suggest you backup profiles.ini and the current profile first onto something like a USB/flash drive. profiles.ini should be at C:\Users\mjt\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird . Its used to store information about what profiles Thunderbird knows about.
Gwaihir
Posts: 95
Joined: March 23rd, 2009, 11:04 am
Location: Cambridge UK

Re: Is there any way to change the mailbox location?

Post by Gwaihir »

Thanks for your reply. I've done as you suggest, creating the new profile on a separate hard disk, and all seems to be well. Much obliged.

For the moment I haven't deleted the old profile just in case of any problems, just renamed it so the new one can take the old name.
Best regards,

Gwaihir.
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