Carbonite Support > Importing Your Thunderbird Dat...

Importing Your Thunderbird Data

Summary:

Before you can import your information into Thunderbird, you must first have Thunderbird installed on your computer.

Following these procedures may remove all current emails and contacts saved within Thunderbird.
  • This article is for Windows only

Solution:

Please choose the scenario that best fits your situation below.

The sections below are collapsed. Please click a section title to open / close the appropriate section.

I still need to restore my data

After Thunderbird has been installed, please enter Recover Mode. This will ensure that your restore goes as smoothly as possible. After you have entered Recover Mode, you can start the process of restoring your files. To restoreTo download files from Carbonite’s servers to your computer. your files, you will need to open the Carbonite Backup Drive through the File Explorer window (alternatively called Windows Explorer in older Windows operating systems).

Double-click the Carbonite Backup Drive icon.

Carbonite Backup Drive Icon

You will see the Carbonite Backup DriveCarbonite’s virtual drive, containing all the files within your backup. Located within Windows Explorer. window displayed. This window shows you all of the files in your backup (A set of copies of your files on our servers) organized the same way they are on your computer.

You will see a list of top-level drives and folders that contain files that have been selected for back up. To see the individual files, you must navigate into the folders by double-clicking them.

  1. Navigate to the appropriate Profiles folder C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\ in your Carbonite Backup drive.
    • In Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\
    • In Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\
  2. Right-click on the [Profile Name] folder and select Restore to.... The actual name of the folder is unique to your profile, but will contain the word "default".
  3. In the Browse for Folder Window, select Desktop and click OK. (You will need to wait for your restore to complete before moving on to the next step.)
  4. Proceed to the next section.
Carbonite recommends restoring the whole of your Thunderbird profile folder rather than individual files or folders from within it.

I've already restored and need to import my data

If you need help importing your restored data, please work with a local computer technician.
  1. Install Thunderbird (if you haven't already) and open the program. Thunderbird will create a default profile, but you will not need to add anything to it.
  2. Navigate to the appropriate [Profile Name] folder and delete everything in this folder.
    • In Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[Profile Name]
    • In Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[Profile Name]
  3. Copy the contents of the old profile folder (that you previously restored to your Desktop), including all of its files and subfolders into the now empty [Profile Name] folder.

Note: Your [User Name] will vary depending on how you set up your computer. If you do not see your own name, your files are most likely in something generic, such as Owner or User.

Once you have completely restored all of your data and successfully imported it into the program, please exit Recover Mode to resume normal backup operations.

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