Thunderbird how-to move data files

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vidtek
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Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 9:23 pm
Location: from 13-03-2014 in Bournemouth UK

Thunderbird how-to move data files

Post by 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.
Asus Z270 i7 16gb ram 8.25tb GT960 TSB6205 Quad tuner 64-bit Mint 18.2 Sonya KDE & win 10 Be/FE myth 0.28
Laptop Samsung NP R580 i5 nvidia linux ultimate & win 10
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