Thunderbird how-to move data files

[vidtek]

How-to move Thunderbird emails and profile painlessly.

Scenario:Thunderbird defaults to ~/.thunderbird for its data and profile. (For linux newcomers, the symbols ~/ mean your home folder) You don't wish to store emails in your crowded home folder but safely move them to a separate data drive or partition.

1) copy the complete folder ~/.thunderbird to your new drive or partition, you may need to enable “view hidden files” in your favourite file manager (shortcuts; nautilus uses ctrl+h, dolphin uses alt+.).
2) From your ~/.thunderbird folder, open profiles.ini in a text editor.

It will look like this; this is my own profiles.ini:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=Tony
IsRelative=0
Path=/media/data/email/thunderbird/wno6hzuq.default
Default=1

edit the Path= to point to your new location and save the file in the same ~/.thunderbird location.

4) Open Thunderbird as normal and enjoy.

I like all my data, docs, emails, pictures, videos and music to be in one drive, totally separate from any operating system. I format the drive to NTFS so it's accessible to my windaz lovin' friends that want to leech my movies and music and is real easy to backup.

Tony.