How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

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Julie222
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How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by Julie222 »

I've been running Thunderbird on windows 7, have lots of folders and emails I need to save. However, just got a MacBook pro and not sure how I can download Thunderbird for a mac and keep my folders. Thanks
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by tanstaafl »

Copy your profile to the Mac and then follow the instructions in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_p ... hunderbird for how to tell Thunderbird where it is. Thats harder than if you were moving to another windows PC where you could just back it up using Mozbackup, copy the *.pcv file and then restore it using Mozbackup since Mozbackup doesn't support OS X.
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Eckard
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by Eckard »

Julie222 wrote:I've been running Thunderbird on windows 7, have lots of folders and emails I need to save. However, just got a MacBook pro and not sure how I can download Thunderbird for a mac and keep my folders. Thanks

In addition to tanstaafi's post :
To install TB on your Mac -> launch Safari, go to http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download
and download Thunderbird 9.0.1 to your Desktop. You'll see a disk image named "Thunderbird 9.0.1.dmg" on your Desktop.
Double-click the disk image, after a few seconds an install window will open :
Drag the "Thunderbird" icon to the "Applications" folder icon to install Thunderbird in the Applications folder.
You may then drag the TB icon from the Apps folder to the Dock to create a quick access to TB.
It works like an alias : a simple left click on the TB icon in the Dock will launch TB.

If you have difficulties using the mozillazine knowledge base articles to transfer your TB profile from Win to Mac,
ask back and specify whether you use a POP or IMAP account.
julie222
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by julie222 »

Hi! Thanks a lot for your replies. Before I try to tackle this, I'm not sure about my apple mail and how that works into this or maybe doesn't. I have a gmail account that i made to have my mail forwarded from cox.net so all my mail will be in one place. This is all happening at once and very confusing
I've saved my thunderbird from its profile path and restored a few times but how do i copy the profile to put on the mac? Do you mean just copying the path and once i install thunderbird on the mac it will see it? Another dummy question.... If i decide to use apple mail, can i let the thunderbird account just sit there so i can access my folders? And then if after trying apple mail if i want to go back to thunderbird, i can?
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by tanstaafl »

1. The KB article describes how to use the profile manager to explicitly tell Thunderbird where the copied profile is. It does this by updating a profiles.ini file with a link to the profile. Unless you overwrite an existing profile that it knows about, Thunderbird doesn't "discover" profiles, it finds them by looking in profiles.ini.

2. Yes. You can ignore Thunderbird while trying out Mail.app and vice versa.
julie222
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by julie222 »

Thanks so much! I'll give it all a try.. I really like my thunderbird mail.. Can you tell me the difference between the apple mail and thunderbird? I went to the apple store and they didn't even know what thunderbird was so i left and came here. Thanks again.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by tanstaafl »

Thunderbird is a very customizable cross platform email client with support for hundreds of add-ons (files that will extend the functionality/change the features), only about half of its functionality is built-in. Most add-ons are user written. Mozilla made some explicit tradeoffs to make add-ons easier to develop than traditional plug-ins. Apple Mail has some plug-ins (to add features), but much fewer.

Compare tikouka.net/ and Hawkwings (largest collections of mail.app plugins I can find) with Mozilla add-ons, kaomos and add-ons mirror (official Thunderbird add-ons web site plus two independent ones)

Thunderbird isn't integrated with OS X like mail.app is (can't write to the OS X address book , has no support for AppleTalk so it doesn't support working with iPhoto etc., and it doesn't do as good a job at having a OS X specific look and feel).

Both Thunderbird and Apple Mail support POP and IMAP accounts. Its a question of personal preference which you use.
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Eckard
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by Eckard »

julie222 wrote:Thanks so much! I'll give it all a try.. I really like my thunderbird mail.. Can you tell me the difference between the apple mail and thunderbird? I went to the apple store and they didn't even know what thunderbird was so i left and came here. Thanks again.

I agree with tanstaafi that the best method to install your TB profile on Mac would be to use the Profile Manager.
Just some hints if you want to install the TB profile in its default directory and not in some other place on Mac :

• Copy your TB profile folder (named somewhat like "ya2c3b9x.default") from the PC to the Desktop of your Mac
• Launch TB a first time, don't create any mail account
• In the TB menu go to ->Help -> Troubleshooting information -> Application Basics -> Profile directory -> click Show in Finder
• A Finder windows opens, showing the "Profiles" folder with the (virgin) default profile TB just created
• Quit TB (Cmd + Q or menu TB -> Quit TB). Copy your transferred TB profile folder from Desktop into the "Profiles" folder,
side by side with the profile folder created ln TB's first run
• Launch the TB Profile Manager as described in the KB article and follow the instructions to create a new profile
and to navigate to the location of the copy of your transferred profile folder
(the path to this folder is /user/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/... where you select the copy of
your transferred profile folder), click "Open", then "Done" and finally "Start Thunderbird"
Image
• Check if all your message folders and address books are there
• Via the Profile Manager you may later delete the profile (containing no data) created on the first TB run.
julie222
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by julie222 »

Thanks a lot!
chaslacha
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Joined: August 7th, 2006, 8:10 am

Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by chaslacha »

My problem is ----- I install TB and have used it a couple of weeks. Now I have time and want to transfer my emails from my pc. I've been running the two in parallel so I'm not worried about overlaying my mac mailboxes.

How should I go about doing this? I have my pc profile on my mac desktop but of course, there a second profile as well.
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Eckard
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by Eckard »

chaslacha wrote:My problem is ----- I install TB and have used it a couple of weeks. Now I have time and want to transfer my emails from my pc. I've been running the two in parallel so I'm not worried about overlaying my mac mailboxes.

How should I go about doing this? I have my pc profile on my mac desktop but of course, there a second profile as well.

• Download and install the TB "ImportExportTools" extension
http://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html
• In the Folder Pane select a mail folder to which you want to import your message files
• in Menu go to 'Tools -> 'ImportExportTools' -> 'Import mbox files' ->
choose 'Import directly one or more mbox files'
• In the following Finder window navigate to the Mail folder in your PC profile
and select the Sent, Inbox, Template, ... etc files you want to import ( = files without extension) and click Ok.
• The imported message folders will appear as sub-folders of the mail folder you'd chosen in step 2

In my screen shot below you see my Inbox and Sent "folders" (black arrows) with their genuine, default icons.

Image

The red arrows show Inbox and Sent folders I imported for demonstration (from another profile) as sub-folders of my Inbox.
Having finished to import your messages from your PC profile, you then can "unify" your Inbox folders by copying the messages
from the imported Inbox folder to the genuine, original Inbox, then delete the imported Inbox folder.
Then do the same with other imported folders or sub-folders to sort messages to your convenience.
chaslacha
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Joined: August 7th, 2006, 8:10 am

Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by chaslacha »

I didn't get past the first step. I'm using TB 9.0.1 and I can not find an install button on the 'Tools - Addons (or extensions) page.

Is there another way to install a .xpi file?
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by tanstaafl »

Click on the icon that looks like a gear near the upper right corner of the window in tools -> add-ons. That will display a list menu with "install add-on from file".
chaslacha
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Joined: August 7th, 2006, 8:10 am

Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by chaslacha »

Thanks everyone for the help.

Got my old emails transferred successfully.
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Eckard
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Re: How to move thunderbird from windows 7 to mac

Post by Eckard »

You're welcome ;-)
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