Outlook Express to Thunderbird Transfer?

macman

I need to transfer emails and address book from an old XP PC with OE to a new Windows 7 one with Thunderbird.
Research online indicates two different approaches to this:
1) export the OE data to a flash drive or similar, install T'bird on the new PC and then convert/import the data.
2) install T'bird on the old PC, import OE data to that via Tools>Options>Import. Then copy the Profile to a flash drive, install T'bird on the new PC, and import the Profile.
Has anyone done this, and which way is best?
I tried to do this recently but, from OE to Windows Live Mail, and it was not an experience I'd want to repeat.

grumpycrab

I tried similar (Outlook Express to Thunderbird) last week by installing TB on the original computer and then moving TB profile to new computer.

My main problem was that the account (not just mail) on NEW COMPUTER was created under TB Local Folders and wouldn't sync mail at logon. (If you're familiar with TB the "normal" situation is that you have accounts OUTSIDE Local Folders and Local Folders contains ...local folders and local emails).

Other lesson learned was to do a good prune of mail BEFORE migration. Many people just hoard their email and/or don't realise that (most?) ISPs, despite POP, keep all mail.

Ok, so I wasn't the TB expert I thought I was. My suggestion is, after email tidy and disable of incoming at the original computer, to create the email account from scratch on the new computer (also use IMAP settings - I'm sure you know why.)

Hopefully you'll get better advice from others. (PS. The above may be a good way to transfer over the address book but I didn't fully check it.)

debitcardmayhem

You could TB from portableapps on a stick or just from a folder on the old pc and then copy that across.

rdr

Install TB on old PC and import from OE
Back out TB to memeory stick using mosbackup
Install TB and mosbackup on new PC and resore backup

alanjuk

Can I suggest you use a great little program that I found some years ago, it is Mailstore it is free for personal use and lets you backup from various email clients and restore to others. It is also good as a permanent backup solution for email. It can be run from a USB stick so does not need to be installed on a machine.

aerostar

macman wrote: »

I need to transfer emails and address book from an old XP PC with OE to a new Windows 7 one with Thunderbird.
Research online indicates two different approaches to this:
2) install T'bird on the old PC, import OE data to that via Tools>Options>Import. Then copy the Profile to a flash drive, install T'bird on the new PC, and import the Profile.

I have done this a number of times, and it really is very simple,

Install thunderbird on Xp run it and let it import all from OE.

Get your backup key plug that in

goto start button on XP and type

%appdata%

this will open a directory list - look down it and find Thunderbird, and open it - inside you will find
a directory called crash reports, one called profiles, and a file called profiles.ini.

There may be others but ignore them.

Copy the profiles directory and profiles.ini to the memory key. Make sure your key has plenty of space if you have LOTS of emails stored.


When copied - got to the win 7 machine - install Thunderbird and run it - do not create any accounts, just click on "I think I will configure an account later", then close/exit Thunderbird down.

Then as XP goto start button - type %appdata% and goto the Thunderbird directory and open it.

Now copy from your memory key the profiles directory and profiles.ini to that folder - they should be allowed to over write the current files of the same name.

If you want to be fireproof rename the original ini and profiles directory that are already there.

Now you can run thunderbird and you should have all your emails and account setting.


When you select the inbox you may find some delays as it will re-index.

Also You can move the Outlook express imports directories to the Tbird local folders - if you mess anything up you can just re copy the files from the key again.

macman

Thanks-does this latter method copy both the emails and the address book?

aerostar

macman wrote: »

Thanks-does this latter method copy both the emails and the address book?

Yes - when you run Tb you may have to go to the topish right hand corner where you will see three horizontal lines - click on that, then tools and choose import - you can then import everything or select what you want.

It will import your settings etc but not the passwords for the email account(s) so you will have to enter them when you do a get mail.

debitcardmayhem

aerostar wrote: »

Yes - when you run Tb you may have to go to the topish right hand corner where you will see three horizontal lines - click on that, then tools and choose import - you can then import everything or select what you want.

It will import your settings etc but not the passwords for the email account(s) so you will have to enter them when you do a get mail.

There is an add-on for that https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html
Importexporttools https://addons.mozilla.org/en/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/