Windows Live Mail 2012 to Thunderbird (2025)

From Chaos to Clarity – Migrating Windows Live Mail 2012 to Thunderbird in 2025 📥➡️🕊️

“Why are my emails turning up twice?” When Carol’s decade-old Windows Live Mail 2012 began downloading a second copy of every message—and its Export button had mysteriously vanished—she was ready to give up. Instead, we performed a tidy two-step rescue that left her with a single, modern inbox and all of her contacts intact.

The Challenge

• 📑Duplicate messages appearing because both email programs were polling the same account
• 📇Missing Export option in Live Mail’s address-book toolbar
• ⚠️Ageing, unsupported software risking future data loss

Our Approach

1. Disable Live Mail inbox retrieval – opened Accounts ▸ Properties ▸ General and unticked
   “Include this account when receiving or synchronising” (or set Synchronisation to Manual for IMAP).
   This stops Live Mail fetching new mail while preserving everything already stored locally.
2. Rescue the contacts – with the Export button gone we:
   • Ran shell:Contacts to open the hidden Windows Contacts store (quickest fix).
   • If that’s empty, we fall back to LiveContactsView to extract the Contacts.edb database directly.

   Exported to CSV → imported into Thunderbird → ran Address Book ▸ Tools ▸ Find & Merge Duplicate Contacts for a final tidy-up.

The Outcome

• 📬Single, clutter-free Thunderbird inbox—no more duplicates
• 👥All contacts safely migrated (and de-duplicated)
• 🚀Carol can finally retire Live Mail without fear of losing data

Key Takeaways

• Legacy doesn’t mean locked-in—there’s always a workaround for missing export tools.
• Always de-duplicate after bulk imports to keep address books tidy.
• Disable old clients first to stop the duplicate-mail snowball.

Still wrestling an old email client? Book an on-site migration and breathe easier with a modern, single-inbox setup.