solution: import old mail messages into TB (no profile copy)

[Stellaris]

heya,

TB 0.1 somehow screwed up a few days back and refused to show my mail accounts and mailboxes anymore. i couldn't access my old mail anymore and, fortunately, the guy who runs the german TB page and forum sat through a massive session with me over the net and we got an answer to the problem which might be interesting for the whole community.

i had tried following the faq procedure on importing mozmail profiles into TB to get back my old mail, but i had numerous failed attempts (don't really know what went wrong each time).

if you need to haul over old messages from another profile to a new profile (say, due to a crash of TB, no mail accounts or mailboxes showing anymore), a way to do it is this:

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1. open TB and create 2 folders within the "Local Folders" (usually at the bottom of the mailfolder-tree- pane), whatever name, say "xxx" and a subfolder of "xxx" called "yyy".

2. then open up your filemanager and navigate to the "Local Folders" folder in your >current< TB profile, for example something like:

"c:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\Thorsten\wwf13tvq.slt\Mail\Local Folders"

3. in the "Local Folders" folder there should be the folder "xxx.sbd" you created in the earlier step. open it and find 2 files, one called "yyy" and "yyy.msf".

4. now navigate to the folder where your >old< mail that you want to "import" sits, something like:

"c:\tmp\tb_profiles\xvv1x1b7.slt\Mail\pop3.web.de"

<- that's where i kept a back-up of my old stuff, fortunately.

5. in that folder "pop3.web.de" (or whatever your folder is called there) are one folder called "Inbox" and several files (drafts, drafts.msf, junk, junk.mfs, templates, templates.msf and so forth)

6. select all that stuff and copy/move it over to the folder "xxx.sbd" you created earlier (that's in your >current< profile folder)

7. open up TB and as a subfolder of "Local Folders", there should be mentioned folder "xxx.sbd" with all your old mail that you copied over in step 6.

it worked sweet ass here, enjoy!
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i hope that my wording is clear enough so that people can follow my logic easily.

[AlexIhrig]

Nice to see our solution here. In step 7 the users will see the folder "xxx" in Thunderbirds Folder-Pane (as created above) - not "xxx.sbd".

Regards
Alex Ihirg

[Guest]

Thanks man I was getting worried at one point