How to Move Thunderbird to New Computer Windows 10
When you switch from old computer to new you will want to move your essential data too. And what if you are an email client user? Then it becomes all the more important to at least move the client profile settings and data. Now among the popular ones, Thunderbird is an email client with no option to export your emails and settings. Then how to move Thunderbird to new computer windows 10? That’s exactly what we will tell you in this article. There are both manual and third-party automated solutions available for migrating Thunderbird to another computer. You can go for the free but insecure manual ways or you can use MBOX Converter, a globally trusted third party tool.
Manual Methods to Move Thunderbird to New Computer
Remember to backup your Tb profile data before using any manual ways. It is a necessary precaution to take in case the manual approach results goes haywire. Now, let us focus on the two manual approaches for migrating Thunderbird to another computer.
Approach 1. Move Thunderbird to New Computer Manually using Gmail
In this method, you will transfer all your emails to Gmail and synchronize that Gmail account in the new computer’s email client. The step-by-step guide is given below:
- Create and open your Gmail account
- Create a new Thunderbird account for Gmail in your old computer using IMAP
- Now, create matching subfolders in that Thunderbird Gmail configured account for every mailbox folder you want to move
- Thunderbird will automatically create the corresponding folders in your Gmail
- Now, go to the original folder in Mozilla Thunderbird and select all its emails
- Next, right-click, choose Copy-To and select the corresponding folder in the Gmail account
- This will copy all the selected messages in Gmail’s server too
- Repeat the steps until you copy every message you need to move
- Now, Install and launch Thunderbird or any other email client on the new computer
- Configure the same Gmail account there. Once it gets synchronized, you will have successfully copy Thunderbird emails to new computer.
Limitations:
- It’s a lengthy process and hence is not feasible for users having a large amount of data
- There is a good chance for users to forget some messages or folders while copying which leads to data loss
- A backup is a must before trying this method as it does not guarantee safe results
Approach 2. Copy Thunderbird Profile to New Computer Manually
In this method, we will use profile manager to directly move Thunderbird to new computer
- Go to Account Settings >> Server settings
- On the right side, you will see the path under Local Directory. This is where all the contents of your profile are stored
- Copy all these files in the given location to a backup storage device
- Now launch Thunderbird on the new computer and create a new profile
- Find the local directory for this new profile using the same process as stated above
- Close Thunderbird and move the copied files from backup storage device to this directory location (overwrite if asked)
- When you open Thunderbird again, all your previous messages and settings should be intact.
Limitations
- It is a time-consuming process.
- There are chances of file corruption.
- It has data loss risk issues when copying the files.
- It is only viable if you are using Thunderbird on your new computer. For any other email client like Outlook, this approach will fail.
Risk-Free Solution to Move Thunderbird to New Computer
We discussed the manual approaches to copy Thunderbird emails to new computer and described the risks / limitations involving them. That’s why, we are also providing you with an effective professional software i.e., MBOX Converter to export MBOX to PST. It can provide guaranteed results without any risks in just a few clicks.
Benefits of the Mentioned Tool
- No risk of data loss throughout the process
- Supports automated profile fetching from Thunderbird
- Can Import both mailbox files or folders (in bulk)
- Maintains the Data Integrity of Thunderbird Mailboxes
- Provides Date filters and Naming conventions
Final Words:
The article focuses on the various methods to move Thunderbird to new computer. Among these approaches, manual solution is free but its limitations make it less favorable. We conclude that the professional tool solution is the most effective way of migrating Thunderbird to another computer. No risk of data loss and quick processing speed along with many other relevant features makes it far superior to any manual approach.