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Going on road trip need access to backup local profile. Can't see any emails! Help

  • 6 cavab
  • 0 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by david

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Copied profile from Windows 11 desktop via usb drive. On Macbook installed Thunderbird. Opened it up and closed it. Moved copied profile folder into the Mac Thunderbird profile library. Then opened profile manager. Created new profile. Pointed at copied and moved profile. Opened Thunderbird. Shows zero emails. Very frustrated. Tried so many things!! I just want to have access to my old emails. Are there any 3rd party programs that can locally without internet view my emails? Thanks

Copied profile from Windows 11 desktop via usb drive. On Macbook installed Thunderbird. Opened it up and closed it. Moved copied profile folder into the Mac Thunderbird profile library. Then opened profile manager. Created new profile. Pointed at copied and moved profile. Opened Thunderbird. Shows zero emails. Very frustrated. Tried so many things!! I just want to have access to my old emails. Are there any 3rd party programs that can locally without internet view my emails? Thanks

All Replies (6)

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Things I have tried. I tried turning off the internet on my Macbook. I tried installing the same version that's on my desktop on my Macbook. I tried a super old version 60. I tried deleting all profiles then creating a brand new one. I tried installing on a 2nd windows desktop computer and the same result as the Macbook. I tried copying via a flash drive and via a usb hard drive. I tried using the export function but it only works up to 2gb. My profile is 2.7gb.

Modified by Denise Lopes

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One possibility would be to copy the message files from the Windows profile folder (e.g., Mail\<POPaccountname>inbox to the Mail\Local Folders folder on the MAC profile and restart Thunderbird.

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Thank You david. I actually was trying to copy an old profile (the wrong one). Now that I have that figured out I'm still having mostly the same issue. I've figured out that the emails I want to access are under the ImapMail folder inside the profile. Inside Thunderbird I finally can see the local folders but just trash and outbox are there. There's no Inbox. I thought I saw that erasing the .msf files in there might rebuild the local folders...

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Okay, copy the folders in Imapmail to Local folders and restart Thunderbird.

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david thanks for your help! That didn't work but it helped me to figure out what did. I put the main inbox file that was inside the ImapMail folder directly into the local folder. Yay! So happy it works finally! Thanks again!

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You are welcome. :)