Moving Thunderbird data or profile to a second drive ?

I just installed a second drive for storage & want to offload & direct TB email to it from the C: drive.

Most articles I've seen explain how to move the profile to a second drive. But some tell how to just change the file path in TB and save just the email to another drive. The second method seems like the cleaner process because only the email is affected. However moving the whole profile seems to be the dominant process that I come across. Is moving the profile a better way?

Thanks

There are two scenarios with Thunderbird mail storage; it's in the profile folder or it's in a separate folder.
I run Thunderbird with about 10 email addresses. The inbox, trash etc are in the profile folder, but using filters I move emails to separate folders which is stored outside the profile folder.

I also have moved the profile folder off the C:\ drive. I restore my C:\ drive so often I would lose emails.

So in my case, I would have to do two things;

1. Move the profile folder
2. Update the profiles.ini @ %APPDATA%\Thunderbird.

If you do not update profiles.ini and you delete the profile folder Thunderbird will get an error and ask to create a new folder.

Also keep in mind, the IsRelative directive. By default Thunderbird specifies the path to the profile folder relative to the %APPDATA%\Thunderbird folder. (IsRelative=1). If you move your profile folder you will need to specify the full path and IsRelative=0.

For me, profiles.ini specifies
IsRelative=0
Path=f:\users\tanya\profiles\<profilefoldername>

Now, as to email, that is specified within Thunderbird on your account settings.

If it's stored in your profile folder you need to do the above. If it's in a separate folder on your C:\ drive you would copy it to the new drive first then update the account settings within thunderbird.

Then on the account settings, under server settings specify at the bottom the local local directory where you want to store mail.

If you have more than one email account I would keep them separate.

For me; I have

F:\users\tanya\mail\<emailaddress1>
F:\Users\tanya\mail\<emailaddress2>

and so on..

Where <emailaddressX> is the email address I am storing email for.

Of course, always backup %APPDATA%\Thunderbird and your profile folder (if not in %APPDATA%\Thunderbird), and email before starting.

Until recently I had slow DSL & have used POP mail & downloaded email to my PC. That way I only had to retrieve it once. I wonder how many people save email to a second drive, especially if using IMAP and keeping it on the server.

I have no cell phone and no need of portability so I've always used POP. Emails are retrieved every 5 minutes and except for the occasional email from someone new emails are removed from the pop server when retrieved. No point leaving it in the cloud.

Josey Wales said:

Hekasoft Backup & Restore 0.94 | Free Browser Backup Software
I just use the above Portable program to backup T-Bird & Firefox. It works for other browsers as well.

Ah, ok. Thanks. I do my backups with Macrium. Browser and T-Bird are extremely basic. Even xcopy is good enough :)
Not quite sure though how that relates to what I said about using POP?