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This is similar to this question but not exactly a duplicate. My Linux laptop has recently been hanging for no apparent reason, and so I have been using a Mac OS X laptop in the meantime. I just installed Thunderbird and wanted to copy all my preferences and account settings to the new laptop. All email accounts are IMAP based.

Can I simply copy the data, or does Thunderbird for OS X store data in a different format from OS X? What about if I wanted to copy the preferences to Thunderbird under Windows?

Finally, what files do I copy? I haven't powered up the Linux laptop yet but I'm guessing there's a ~/.thunderbird/ directory, can I just copy this to the Mac?

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Josh
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I'm trying this some years later, with my Mac running MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).

I installed version 78.10.2 of Thunderbird on the Mac. This version has a slightly different file structure in ~/Library/Thunderbird

There are files profiles.ini and installs.ini at the top level and a folder called Profiles which has a couple of profiles set up after install. I messed around copying my profile into the Profiles folder and tried to edit the .ini files to reflect what I wanted, and failed.

So I copied the contents of my profile folder into a more or less empty one called ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/nlgsvk8r.default

and used Thunderbird -> Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> about:profiles -> Create a New Profile... I called it default and chose the folder ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/nlgsvk8r.default

That worked fine.

reallydismayed
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Yes, simply copy the contents of ~/.thunderbird to ~/Library/Thunderbird on OS X.

ghoppe
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As of Thunderbird version 91.7 this is actually not as easy as migrating from Mac to Mac or Linux to Linux. The reason for this is a different folder structure on Mac.

  1. You need to copy your main profile xxxxxxx.default from the ~/.thunderbird folder on linux into the ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles folder on Mac.
  2. Copy the installs.ini and profiles.ini files in the folder ~/Library/Thunderbird on Mac
  3. Edit the file profiles.ini and change the value of the row Path=xxxxxxx.default to Path=Profiles/xxxxxxx.default
Miles Wolbe
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George Black
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  • There is a typo, the file is named profiles.ini ... but I found the easiest way: I just copied the content of the source profile folder (~/.thunderbird/sourceprofile.default/*) into the destination profile folder (Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/destinationprofile.default-release/*). Before "sync" I deleted all the folders and files from destination profile folder. – BCsongor Jul 29 '22 at 20:37
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My "answer" consists of two questions:

Copy the installs.ini and profiles.ini files in the folder ~/Library/Thunderbird on Mac is part of an answer. Does this mean the installs.ini and profiles.in from the SOURCE FILE into the DESTINATION FILE? If not from WHERE to WHERE?

There is a typo, the file is named profiles.ini ... but I found the easiest way: I just copied the content of the source profile folder (~/.thunderbird/sourceprofile.default/) into the destination profile folder (Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/destinationprofile.default-release/). Before "sync" I deleted all the folders and files from destination profile folder. – BCsongor Jul 29, 2022 at 20:37

What does "sync" mean? Is it a command? If you deleted all files in the DESTINATION folder, what is left in it? My guess is that you mean to delete everything in the DESTINATION folder BEFORE copying everything from the SOURCE folder into the DESTINATION folder. If this is not right, how do you have anything left in the DESTINATION folder after you have deleted everything in it?

Chaim Frazer
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1185914) – Rohit Gupta Apr 27 '23 at 04:40