Thunderbird Community Forum

I just installed a new router and all of a sudden nothing is working properly on my PC. Among other things, I need to fix Thunderbird, and for that I need to find where my thunderbird profile is. The instructions I've seen say to go to troubleshooting information, find profile folder, and click on "open folder." When I do that, nothing happens. (I told you installing the router appears to have broken everything--I don't know how that happened, especially since I was on the phone with tech support for the router for install), and I'm no closer to finding the profile file. I can enter %appdata%\roaming\thunderbird\profiles but that shows me two different profile directories and I don't know which one is the right one. How can I find the correct file and why doesn't troubleshooting information just show me that?

Yesterday I was having trouble sending emails from one of my email accounts. I had not fixed that when I shut down for the night. Today when I turned my computer on, both my email accounts and my address book was gone

Thunderbird installed a new version and would not open until I created a new profile. Now all my locally saved email is missing. The only profile I can find is the new one for my email account, dated April 2026. Where is the old profile with all my saved emails? I have no email older than April 2026 in my Inbox. POP3 email, saved to my desktop computer, is gone. Please help me find them.

I deleted my Thunderbird account and created a new one on the same computer. I used a Profile saved on my external hard drive. The address book info was replicated. The hierarchy of folders and their emails were not replicated in the left hand pane. Is there a way to retrieve those folders with their content? Please, I am not super techno-savvy, so take me step by step. Thank you.

Can I use thunderbird with multiple accounts on multiple PC's and stay synchronised?

I have two PC's i want to set up - it seems like i have to create a new account for a second PC rather than pick up the account set up from the first PC.

I am installing Tbird on a Windows 10 instance that I am recovering from backup. There is a default profile that contains a folder for a user in an IMAP domain that no longer exists. Tbird won't start and just spins with a message about a missing IMAP user.

I copied the profile to another backup folder. And then uninstalled and re-installed TB. The "AppData > Roaming > Thunderbird > Profiles" folder(s) are still there but empty. When I start TB it says: "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." The old email is not important now. Should I delete more folders in AppData, or what should I do next?

I have my incoming IMAP emails stored on my local computer drive where the default Thunderbird installation puts it. This is fine.

My question is, can I move the local folders directory to another external drive or network attached storage? I am doing this as I have a small local SSD and combining all emails the size is massive.

"Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible" keeps appearing mid-screen. version 147.0.1 re-installed several times (Win-10). Transfers of profile attempted from operating PC (Win-10) Cannot locate profile even in a "fresh Install" although the shortcut appears on screen and other associated files seem to be installed. Helps have been downloaded and tried. Same issue. I've received help suggestions from Lin and sfhowes both on 2-6-26.. Thanks for your help.

Hello, I just enabled the backup sync option for the Firefox web browser (Win 10). What is the equivalent process, or recommended method of enabling a backup for mail folders, calendar entries, address books, settings, etc. of the most current Thunderbird version on a Win 10 PC? I could not find a clear answer in the help forums. Thank you.

I tried to start Thunderbird and it would not open. There was a message that read, "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." After trying to fix it and nothing worked, I uninstalled and reinstalled Thunderbird. Now all of my contacts and data is gone. When I tried to use the import tool I selected import from another Thunderbird installation and I can't get past the continue button.

How do I recover all of my data and contacts/addresses?

When I try to copy Thunderbird Profiles to my backup hard drive I get the following error message after a few minutes of writing the write stops and I get the following error: Cannot Read from the source file or disk" INBOX Type: File, Size: 315 MB. Date modified: 7/1/2025 6:54 PM If I press the Skip option the file backup proceeds normally with the remainder of the files in Profile. This started about 3 months ago -- previously all files in Profile backed up without a hitch. I am concerned that I am not getting a full backup. Please help!! Thank you Cliff Hill