Merging emails from one PC into another PC

Hello jafran,

The preliminary question is whether it’s a matter of merging the old mail profiles from the PC that crashed with the new ones on the laptop, or if it’s only about starting fresh on the new as it was on the old, with addition of the mails received and sent since.

In the second case, a simple copy of the entire contents of the old profile to the new one with replacement of the destination will ensure everything is identical: mails and address books.

There’s no need to dissect file by file. These are internal parts of the product and we don’t need to know how each folder is organized. It’s the whole content that must be copied.

In the old Profiles, select one of the files, press Ctrl A to select everything, press Ctrl C to copy, go to the new Profiles and press Ctrl V to paste everything. Accept replacing files with identical names to overwrite.

Another way is to delete the profile already existing in the new TB after carefully noting its name. Copy the entire old profile into the new Thunderbird and rename the old profile with the new name.

When Thunderbird starts, you will find everything exactly as it was in the old one and it will synchronize the inbox with the emails received since (if POP) or all folders (if IMAP) provided they are still present on the server.

More generally, in Thunderbird, press F1 to access product help and type "Profiles" in the search field to find articles about profile management.
https://support.mozilla.org/fr/products/thunderbird

The same applies to Firefox to recover bookmarks and other settings:
https://support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/recuperer-donnees-importantes-ancien-profil

Hello,

Thank you for these explanations.
I am indeed in the second case: adding the mails from one PC to the mails of another PC, without risking overwriting those already on the destination PC with those from the source PC.

Answer to question 1 I asked about local mailboxes:
Yes, it is possible to drag and drop all folders e, f, g, h from "profile2.default/ mail/ local folders" into "profile1.default / mail/ local folders/".
I also tried adding a folder K in "profile2" and in "profile1". During the aforementioned drag-and-drop, I received a message indicating a conflict between the original and destination identical names. It is enough then to choose "Let me decide for each file" and check the header of both columns so that the folders stack one under the other, with an index.
Then, one selects all the messages from one and drags them into the other.
This simply resolves the addition of the emails from the two PCs that were in local mailboxes created for sorting (other than "Inbox", "Sent" ...)
Note, I copied the files E, F .... including E.msf, F.msf ....

For questions 2 and 3:

I followed the link indicated by Serbal22, more precisely this one: https: //support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/migrer-thunderbird-vers-un-nouvel-ordinateur

The standard mailboxes, at SFR, are in each of the "profile1" and "profile2", under the "/pop.sfr.fr" folder and they have the same name automatically given by the provider (SFR in this case). These are mainly the Archives, Drafts, Inbox, Sent and Trash boxes.
So that Thunderbird, when opened, lists in its left column all the boxes, proceed with a drag-and-drop as follows:
- close Thunderbird,
- select the Inbox folder of one profile and drag it into the other. A window opens announcing that "the destination contains N files whose names are identical."
- click on "Let me decide for each file"
- check the header of both columns then Continue.
The boxes that have the same name as those in the destination are placed underneath with an index.

One can then select the mails from one box to drag them into the other.
As for the mails that arrive after these manipulations, they will go into one of the boxes that are easily identifiable.

Note: it is not possible to delete these boxes. x

Sorry I couldn't simplify the explanations for those who might benefit from them,
and thanks to SerBal22.

Hello SerBal22,

Thank you for that clarification. I had read that it was all the content of the old profile that needed to be copied.

But, while reading "Accept replacing files with identical names to overwrite," I thought I had spoken poorly about the objective.

Moreover, a bit further on, your perfectly clear and precise explanation seemed to confirm the fear of losing unclassified messages in the local folders, loaded on my old PC, but missing from the server since on it they only keep 15 days.

I wasn't sure I understood well how this would work with the local folders either. These existed on the PCs, but not with the ISP. So if I overwrote the portable's folders with those from the old desktop, I would lose the portable ones.

My reflections may not have been well founded because I’m a bit stuck in understanding these logics. But it’s a lesson: if possible, one PC only; otherwise adopt at least the same tree structure for local folders and for POP, and increase the retention time of messages with the ISP.

Thanks again for your patience.