Migrating Thunderbird windows profiles to Zorin

General Help
1

I have Thinderbird 158.0.1 on my zorin (unpopulated) and thunderbird 156.0 profiles from windows PC. It seems to be possible to move the profiles to Zorin, but after over 10 hours using AI I have not been able to. I do not understand IT speak and am worried about the terminal.

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2

Saving and restoring a profile in Thunderbird should be possible using Tools>Export to create the profile file, then Tools>Import.
However, how is your ZorinOS Thunderbird sourced, e.g. apt, deb, snap, flatpak?
The latter are stand-alone packages (double sandboxed) which may be the problem. Best to have apt or deb versions.

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I did have flatpak, but lots of attempts have meant changing the download version. (Brave AI advised me to do so much I can't remember.) I am very happy to delete the zorin TB and start again.

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4

Hi and welcome.

You could install the tarball:

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5

Thanks Swarfendor, does it matter if I've got 3 profiles
in my profiles folder ( but only 1 calendar and address book for all 3)? and does it matter if my email details are POP, not IMAP?

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Hi, I can't honestly answer that as I don't use Thunderbird anymore. My preferred client is Evolution. :wink:

7

This is what Brave A.I. search via Mojeek came back with:

" To have three profiles in Thunderbird on Linux share a single network calendar , you must use CalDAV or a cloud-based service (like Google Calendar ) rather than a local file, as local calendars are isolated within each profile’s directory.

Step 1: Set up the Shared Calendar
Create or identify a calendar hosted on a server (e.g., via CalDAV , Google , or Outlook.com ). Obtain the calendar URL (ICS or CalDAV link) and credentials.

Step 2: Add the Calendar to Each Profile
For each of the three profiles:

  1. Launch Thunderbird using the specific profile (e.g., thunderbird -P profile1 ).

  2. Go to the Calendar view and click New Calendar .

  3. Select On the Network and choose CalDAV (or the appropriate provider).

  4. Enter the username , password , and calendar URL .

  5. Click Find Calendars or Subscribe to sync the shared events.

Alternative: Shared Local Profile (Advanced)
If you prefer a single local profile shared across three users (not separate profiles) on Linux:

  1. Place the Thunderbird profile folder in a shared location (e.g., /shared/thunderbird ).

  2. Create a symbolic link in each user’s home directory:

ln -s /shared/thunderbird ~/.thunderbird
  1. Ensure proper group permissions allow all three users read/write access to the profile folder.

Note: Using separate profiles with a network calendar is the recommended method to avoid profile corruption and allow independent email accounts while sharing schedule data.

AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."