Obviously you have just used up many hours configuring Thunderbird with your principal personal computer. Then at this time you intend to organize your laptop or the other computers with the same configuration settings however, you wouldn't like to invest every spare time you got carrying it out once more from the very beginning. This content demonstrates ways to copy the settings / information from one computer to another.

Copying Thunderbird 3 settings from Windows to Windows is really easy.

Duplicating Thunderbird 3 functions right from Windows to Windows is very uncomplicated.

There is a cost-free download which you could utilize named as MozBackup. The url is at the last part of this content.

* Install MozBackup on your main computer. * Backup your Thunderbird profile. * Copy the backup to your secondary computer. * Install MozBackup on your secondary computer. * Restore your profile from the backup.

If you would like step by step instructions please refer to the Appendix in the Thunderbird 3.0 Essential Guide.

If you want to copy your Thunderbird settings between Windows, Mac OS X and Linux there are a couple more steps involved but it's not complicated.

I'll refer to the computers as main computer - the one you've set up - and second computer - the one to which you are copying the settings. The menus shown are for copying settings from Windows to Mac OS X, but the steps are the same regardless of which operating systems you use.

Very important! All the settings and email held in Thunderbird on the second computer are going to be taken out. The following information is made by using a completely new installation of Thunderbird as their intended purpose. In case you have email messages and contacts you need to continue on your second computer you have to set up an account to synchronize with Gmail, copy your previous emails to your Gmail account, and synchronize your contacts with Gmail before you'll proceed. For details regarding how to accomplish this i highly recommend you read the Thunderbird Essential Guide.

The basic steps are as follows:

1. Find the location of your Thunderbird profile on your main computer. 2. Copy your profile from your main computer to a USB drive. 3. Copy your profile from the USB drive to your second computer. 4. Verify paths to mail folders and signatures.

1. Find the location of your Thunderbird profile The location of your Thunderbird profile folder depends on the operating system you use. If you are unsure of the location you can verify it in Thunderbird.

* Go to the Tools ? Account Settings... window (Edit ? Account Settings... on Linux).

* Select the Server Settings tab on your account.

* Click the Browse button to verify the location of your mail folder for this account. Make a note of the folder location.

* Now click on the Local Folders tab. Then click on Browse.

* Make a note of the location.

2. Copy your profile from your main computer to a USB drive To copy your profile on to a USB drive simply shut down Thunderbird and go to the folder where your profile is stored. Your name will be different.

Note: You may have issues with hidden folders in Linux and Windows. Tips on how to find them are in the Thunderbird Essential Guide.

Make sure you have enough free space on your USB drive before you copy the profile folder. Now copy the xxxxxxxx.default folder to your USB drive.

3. Copy your profile from the USB drive to the second computer On your second computer we will copy the contents of the profile folder from the USB drive.

* Install Thunderbird

* Start Thunderbird for the first time so the profile folder gets created.

You do not need to create an account since we are going to overwrite all the settings anyway.

* Shut down Thunderbird.

* Navigate to the profile folder.

Notice how the profile name is different to that of the old computer.

* Open the yyyyyyyy.default folder and delete all the contents of the folder.

Do not delete the yyyyyyyy.default folder - only the contents of the folder!

Important! This will remove all email and settings you have stored on Thunderbird if you already have Thunderbird on this computer. Only do this if you do not wish to keep the old emails.

* On your USB drive open the profile folder from your main computer.

* Copy the contents of the xxxxxxxx.default folder on the USB drive into the yyyyyyyy.default folder on your second computer.

It is important that you do not change the name of the yyyyyyyy.default folder.

4. Verify paths to mail folders and signatures

If you find that the email folders do not appear correctly you will need to verify the folder locations.

* Start Thunderbird again.

* Go to Tools ? Account Settings...

* On the Server Settings tab verify the location of your email folders.

* On the Local Folders tab verify the location of your local folders.

* Click on the My Mail IMAP tab.

* Verify that your signatures are set up correctly.

If your signatures are stored in external files you will need to copy these from your main computer too. If you entered your signature in Thunderbird it should be set up correctly.

Want to find out more about Thunderbird Sync, then visit ThunderbirdSync.com to get your free copy of the Easy-Email Essential Guide to Thunderbird. To download MozBackup go to Mozbackup.Jasnapaka.com

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