Read email from an old Thunderbird backup but not importing it

01
2013-12
  • flow

    In an external hard drive I have a backup of my email when I use Thunderbird (late 2009), it i around 12G. Now I need to find some old messages and using OS X Lion, I wonder how could I access and search through all that email messages, not importing all email to my laptop's hard drive. I wonder if using Thunderbird (last OS X version or a previos one) one can just tell Thunderbird to read all email from those files but not importing them.

    • Answers
  • Gurken Papst

    You can tell Thunderbird to use your external profile by running firefox -profile "/path/to/your/profile". This will not affect any data on your local profile nor copy any data to your local hdd.

    Reference is here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments

  • ChrisF

    Thunderbird stores the text messages at plain text files so you should be able to use any text editor to read and search individual files. You should also just be able to search the files too (though as I'm not a Mac user I couldn't say what's the best program/tool to use).


    • Related Question

    Configure Thunderbird to never send (or even try to send) HTML emails
  • Brent.Longborough

    Where can I tell Thunderbird always to send emails as plain-text, and never as HTML-formatted messages? I hate HTML-based email, and always do everything possible to send my emails as plain text.

    Thunderbird is always pestering me with questions like "This recipient cannot receive HTML..." or "In order to sign this email, it needs to be converted to plain text..."

    Is there a way I can simply say to Thunderbird "Look, old chap, it's all plain text, so don't bother me any more, ever, again"?


    • Related Answers
  • Peter Mortensen

    One way to accomplish this is to turn off "Compose messages in HTML format", which is under your account settings, in "Composition and Addressing". This will also get rid of the HTML editor, which can be useful even for plain-text messages. (e.g., it nicely formats lists)

    The other way which preserves the HTML editing features, but auto-converts to plain text, is Preferences -> Composition -> Send Options -> Text Format, select "Convert the message to plain text" instead of "Ask me what to do".

  • e-t172

    Tools > Account Settings > Composition & Addressing > Untick "Compose messages in HTML format".

  • Philipp Matthias Schäfer

    The following Information is current for version 17 of Thunderbird, taken from the official FAQ, and answers the question. I post this to update the information provided by the answers from '09.

    Specify that messages should be composed in HTML format (for the selected account)

    Menu location: ToolsEdit | Account Settings | <account name> | Composition & Addressing

    The answer given by derobert is wrong as of (at least) version 17, as there are only options regarding how to format HTML messages at that location.