It 'sounds like' you imported your profile, not hers. Were you sharing TB on the same PC? There's no magic here, although it may seem so. :) Is her profile still working on the old PC? If so, it will be an easy fix, but if it was her account you deleted, then the issue is murky. More information, in detail, may help. Thank you.

Hi David,

Sorry for my delay. What happened is this: I gave my former Win 10 (64bit) PC (hereafter "donated machine") to my wife to replace her older Win 10 (64 bit) PC. We were BOTH running Firefox and Thunderbird. I deleted my Thunderbird account from the donated machine. I had copied the LARGE data files (as detailed in a help article for Thunderbird) from her old machine. I deleted the similarly-named files from the donated machine and then copied into the same directory the data files from her old machine.

That worked: her emails, address book, etc. came over, BUT, also on the donated machine are come local files containing old e-mails of mine and, in the local 'Trash" file, e-mails of mine AND hers. (I had not noticed these previously.) I should add that we use Thunderbird interfaced with GMail, and in setting things up on the donated machine, I used the 'auto' setup which selected IMAP. I cannot figure out where the local POP3 files (with my old e-mails) came from (on the donated machine) except to guess that perhaps in the past, I had set up Thunderbird as a POP3?

In any case, in the several days since I gave the donated machine to my wife she has been using the e-mail a lot, and has now changed things enough so that I cannot go back and start the migration process over again without losing her new stuff. I figure the only way out of this is to continue my process of going through my old e-mails one-by-one, deleting as appropriate and forwarding the rest to my new machine via her e-mail account, and then leaving it to her to go through her old e-mails residing in the local files.

I would like to know how to delete the POP3 local file folders (that will be empty when we have finished the described process) that remain on the donated machine.

I am a fan of Mozilla. Permit me to respectfully suggest that the migration process could be made easier for us Ludites out there.

Thanks much for your patient help.

I'm glad all is working. Once you have finished the POP messages, just highlight the folder, rightclick and delete. Another option is to exit TB on her machine, and in Windows File Explorer, locate your folders in the Mail\LocalFolders folder on her machine and copy them to the same location on your PC when TB is not running. Then start TB, verify access to the folder and messages, and then delete from your wife's PC. When all is done, I encourage both of you to do backups by copying the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird folder to external device.

David, Thanks for your reply. It seems I need more help. I am going NUTS trying to straighten out my wife's Thunderbird files on her new computer. 1) How does stuff come to be in the "Important" folder. I understand that if one MARKS it as important while looking at the item in ones In Box, a copy will be placed in "Important", but there are many items in there that neither I nor my wife marked important. Does T'Bird somehow determine it should have a copy in that folder? 2) This is all she wants:

https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/uploads/images/2023-08-23-13-28-18-bfaeb9.pnghe

What she has is a couple of dozen folders, including some under the heading "unified". She wants items delted from her In Box to go to the trash folder. Right now, it seems to go to "Archive". 3) There were THREE duplicate "Receipts" folders. I tried to delete ONE, but all three are now gone, along with all copies of the receipts. How can I get all this straightened out? Thanks for any suggestions.

My first suggestion is to see what gmail folders ('labels' in google terms) she is subscribed to. Rightclick the account name on main pane, click 'subscribe to view. Gmail folders such as allmail or important are administered by Gmail and are duplicates of the same messages elsewhere. My recommendation is to subscribe only to the ones she manages, such as archives, sent mail, drafts, trash, spam. If she wants an 'important' folder, I suggest using a different name. For archive vs trash, check her settings, as it is possible her TB is set to send trash to archive.

Hi David,

Again, sorry for my delay.

I tried to find a list of subscribed folders. There is a "please wait" massage (that does not go away even after a half hour wait) while the folder list tries tries to populate. (So I cannot get a list of those to which she is presently subscribed.

As to the trash setting, I fixed that so that 'delete' would move message to [useraccount]@gmail.com(IMAP). I am not certain this is the right choice. Have you any advice on this?

Attached is a screen shot of what we have presently:

As I said before, I gave my four-year old Win 10 (64 bit) desktop to my wife. Setting it up for her, I used my Windows account (administrator, and the only account on the machine) changing the name to hers and changing the password to her preferred password. (Apparently, this was not the best way to go about it?) Now the user account seems to have both users' data. Thunderbird apparently has a similar issue with both user e-mails in the files. I am trying (without success) to straighten Thunderbird out for her without losing her MANY e-mails (imported from her old machine, now given away) and her address book, while getting my MANY old e-mails off.

There are many identical messages appearing in several of the Thunderbird folders. What are "unified" folders? All we want is a very simple list of folders such as what I have on my new PC (image attached).

Thanks for your continuing help.

The trash setting seems fine. Try UNticking View>Folders>All folders and see if that leaves all the folders she uses, as what she wants is probably all under Unified. On your question, Unified folders is a view that lets the user see multiple accounts as though they were one. If your wife has just one account, then using 'all folders' is redundant. You should unsubscribe from Allmail and Important and Starred, as those are Gmail labels that duplicate other folders. I suggest logging on to her gmail account online, click the gear icon in upper right, then click to show all options. In tool bar, click 'labels' and all labels will be shown, with a tickbox on right on which ones to show on IMAP accounts. I suggest UNticking allmail, important and starred there. That may eliminate them from the Thunderbird subscribe menu (although I would still check the subscribe folder anyway.

That should take care of her account. If there is still stuff from your account, post the details on that and we will try to help eliminate it. Once the account is working okay, but sure to make backup with TB not running. By backup, I mean to copy c:\users\<her id>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird to an external media - and do it periodically. I do that for my spouse twice a month to avert total disaster in case of a crash or a corrupted update.

Hi David,

I've done the steps you listed. When opening TB AFTER doing what you specified on her GMail account, I got a message (it disappeared quickly enough that I could not copy it, and I cannot get it back) to the effect that 'the current option for all mail did not succeed. (And then something about a message from Gmail . . . .)

In any case, here is what we have now [see attachments]:

The problem with the suggested backup of "her account" is that when I look under 'users', there is no listing for her -- only for me, default, public, TEMP, and TEMP.DESKTOP. (Recall how I went about setting up the machine for her (as detailed above). I think this is the root of the problem where my old e-mails are mixed in with hers.

TU again!

Just for clarity, is Thunderbird working for her? If not, what problems is she encountering? I respect that some of your folders may be intermixed, but let's first be sure on whatever is working so that we don't break anything. Then, screenshots of the Imapmail folder and of each account may show the issue in more depth. Another screenshot of the folders pane (as in your last post), but mark which are yours and which are hers. Thank you.

Hi David,

TB works for her. The issues: a) getting rid of all the unnecessary and duplicative folders WITHOUT losing any of her e-mail; b) getting rid of my old e-mails that I received before giving the computer to her. As to issue b), note that I have NOT received any new e-mails on her computer since I gave it to her several weeks ago. I have no e-mail account on that computer.

To reiterate, when setting up the computer for her, I simply changed the Windows account to her name, used the import instructions for Firefox ant TB to move her files over to her 'new' computer, and here we are. I cannot figure out why she now has all these folders in TB. Asa to issue b) [above], I guess there is no easy way to sort out my old e-mails from hers short of going through the many old e-mails one-by-one. As to getting those old e-mails of MINE over to my new computer, I cannot figure a way other than forwarding them to myself one by one (unless you have some helpful suggestion?)

As to screen shots, I included in my last post all I know how to provide. I thought the one on the right was a screenshot of her Imapmail folder. If there is something else you would find helpful, please tell me how to go about doing it.

Thanks again for you prompt, patient help.

- before doing these steps, exit thunderbird and copy her profile to another folder on PC for safety or to a USB stick. This ensures nothing will be destroyed by accident. - For email folders that are yours to keep, exit TB, and in Windows file explorer, locate them, copy to USB stick, and paste into Mail\Local Folders folder on your pc. Folders tend to have to names that must be kept the same, e.g., INBOX and INBOX.msf Once they are safely on your PC, you can delete them on her PC from file explorer. - restart her thunderbird and if there are still folders that don't relate to her, you should be able to just highlight, rightclick and delete. Your old emails will be in different folders from hers, unless you shared the same email address. So, deleting at the folder level should remove all of your entries. - once you and she believe it's clean, exit TB again and backup profile. My recommended approach is always to copy from c:\users\<her id>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird