upgrading thunderbird
 

is there a way to upgrade thunderbird so you dont loose any of your saved messages? i want to install to the same directory...

Hi mate, I think you can upgrade Thunderbird with no worries as it keeps your messages untouched. Although I haven't tested that in Linux (where I'm writing now from), I have done it under Windows (at my office where I work in) and I didn't have any problem at all. Since Thunderbird is multi-platform, I suppose you shouldn't have any problem at all. Just installed the program as you'd usually do and it should be ready.

I hope my help to be useful for you...

Good luck! :D

This is a little late, so you've probably already installed, and I hope without losing anything.

One of the few things I like about Thunderbird is that generally prior settings and messages are unharmed by new installations.

Thunderbird wisely keeps all the settings and the mail, too, in the user's ("hidden") ~/.thunderbird directory.

As a safeguard I copy that directory to something like ~/.thunderbird_old before I install a new "improved" version of the client. I haven't lost anything yet, though I've had problems where it APPEARED I lost everything--due to a lock file not being removed. But that was probably not Thunderbird's fault, but caused by a faulty shutdown or something.

I do think it's a good idea to copy the ~/.thunderbird directory just in case something major goes wrong.