Trouble migrating Mozilla Thunderbird profile from Windows to Mac

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Trouble migrating Mozilla Thunderbird profile from Windows to Mac

I am a Mac newbie. I'm trying to get my email and browser bookmarks over to my Mac.
I've managed to get my previous Thunderbird directory over to the Mac and put it under the Administrator's Library directory (I tried it under Application support as well). Then I installed T-bird. But it just created a new profile. It didn't recognize the old one.

How do I fix this?

And I don't see a way to export my bookmarks from Firefox to get them over. Any tips?

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Mar 7, 2008 12:31 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 7, 2008 12:57 PM in response to Donnyr314

FF
------
Bookmarks:Organize Bookmarks
File:Export
(or you could just copy the bookmarks file from :
C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<your profile>.default\bookmarks.html

Once you install FF on the Mac, import in the same manner. If you decide to use Safari, under File:Import Bookmarks

Doesn't Thunderbird have an import facility? Did you check Mozilla's knowldegebase?

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Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Mar 7, 2008 1:20 PM in response to Donnyr314

In OS X for Thunderbird:
/Users/account_name/Library/Thunderbird

Mine came from Vista userid/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird

I've moved it back and forth.

Firfox is in ~/ (symbol for home directory)
/Application Support/Firefox/....
where you have default and the rest.

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Answer 3

Donnyr314 Author

Level 1

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Mar 8, 2008 7:33 AM in response to The hatter

Thanks for the reply.
I think my problem lies in the fact that OSX is not letting me copy all of the Thunderbird directory over from windows.
I set up a windows share directory which I can see from the Mac. I can copy a single jpg and such, but when I copy the entire Thunderbird directory it only does part of it, then it says ...
"cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privelages for abook.mab"
and
"cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privelages for Thunderbird"
then it stops.

The only thing I can think of is that when I click on the share directory and it connects, it says
"connected as: Guest" maybe I need to be connected as Administrator?

Just to clarify; I am doing this all as Administrator on the Mac and on the PC. The PC share is set up as read only.

I did try to connect "as registered user" and typed in a password that is my Admin password for the PC but it just logged me in as "guest" again.

Thanks,
Don

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Answer 4

Mar 9, 2008 8:28 AM in response to Donnyr314

Authentication under Mac OS X to Windows isn't really all that strong.

Here's what I did. I set up my shared Windows directory and under Sharing->Permissions, I gave Everyone permission to read/write access. Not the most secure, but you can just give Everyone read access if you like. 🙂

I hope this helps!

Jay

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Answer 5

Donnyr314 Author

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Mar 11, 2008 4:44 PM in response to Donnyr314

Nothing seemed to help as far as getting my profile over the network share.
OSX would not let me copy all of the profile directory.
Thanks for all your suggestions, however.

I got so frustrated, I decided to just burn a DVD and see if this worked any better.
Well yes and no.
I easily copied the Thunderbird profile into place. But then all files and subdirectories were read-only, so I had to dig out a unix book and figure out how to recursively change permissions (chmod -R u+w). I also had struggles with figuring out how to create a thunderbird profile and then substitute my old one for it.

NOW I have a new problem still bugging me which I will start a separate post for. (In short, I installed thunderbird but I'm not sure it's really installed because the disk image keeps reappearing even after I eject it. Thunderbird comes up, but it seems like it's reinstalling it or something.)

With regard to this POST I still would like to get an answer to how to properly use a network share since I had to completely workaround it. I know I'll need this again soon.

Thanks.

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