Thunderbird Community Forum

I've been trying to move my Thunderbird data (148.0) from a Win10 to a Win11 machine. I've meticulously followed both the methods outlined at http://mzl.la/1ApHiU3. I have copied my original profiles.ini from the ...AppData\Roaming folder to that location on the new machine, then corrected the drive locations in the file (see attached profiles.ini image). (yes, the correct "j4sqsccb.XXXXXXX" folder is copied to the new installation's root: a bulky several-GB)

In order to try to replicate my original computer's admittedly-awkward installation from long ago, I have added the suffix " -p -no-remote" to the desktop icon's Target field. And on startup, the new T-bird does properly show my original profiles in the Select panel - even though I only ever used the one that functioned correctly, identified as 1 in the profiles.ini file (see Choose User Profile image, IDs X'ed-out).

However, on selecting that profile on the Win11 machine, Thunderbird just takes me to the account setup screen, as if it's unable to locate or load the account settings for that profile.

I'm only doing this clunky method of copying-over out of ignorance; I'd be very happy to simplify the mess I'd created decades ago with my original installation. OR if you think I'm better off wiping all evidence of past installations to start from a clean install, I'll be happy to do that. Please let me know if you need additional info I've failed to provide here!

Also adding images of my ...Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles folder and Installs.ini file, just in case!

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.

Help please I want to use "Personal Backup" program to save a backup of data needed to restore thenderbird Using tools>help>trouble shooting>application basics>profile>open folder gives 5 files all ending in .default 3 are 1 KB - can these be deleted? 2 have more folders each with many folders and files- are they both needed? which do I use for backing up with "Personal backup" program? the "Personal Backup" program finds 2 possble profiles defaultuser and default_user, which do I need? I am on the "release update channel"

Believe my T-bird account has somehow been corrupted. Takes forever to load on PC and always puts new emails in Trash folder. Often does not accept correct password. If I save / backup PROFILE, uninstall T-Bird and delete any Thunderbird folders on PC, if I restore per backup, will I be restoring the corrupted app. Don't want to loose email addresses, thousands of emails and email folder structure. Will a restore work? Thank you. Greg D

PS Version of T-Bird on laptop still puts all new email in Trash, but loads much more quickly, etc.

I am trying to install Thunderbird into a new computer with Windows 11. When I try to run, it goes to a configuration page but will not connect after finding my account. I have double-checked password, but it says "Unable to log in at server . . . ".

I have uninstalled and reinstalled new program, but get the same response each time. I want to install Thunderbird (and Firefox) and copy my profiles from my old computer to the new one. I am not able to do either. I have followed the online instructions for moving/migrating both, but neither work. Any suggestions?

Rad

I tried to transfer Thunderbird file from old computer to new computer but get "Profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessable." when I start Thunderbird. The old TB file works on old computer and I am pretty sure I copied it and pasted it into the new location in place of the current Thunderbird file.

Hello, i have installed latest TB an try to use it on one PC - This PC is part of company network, users login to windows by domain controller login. there is also a exchange server in the same network. i have created a running and working thunderbird-exchange connection for 2 different users but with the third user its noch working anymore. is there a limit to user accounts on one PC or? Thank you all kind regards andi

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?

Hello. I recently upgraded from my older MacBook Pro (now factory reset and sold) to a new MacBook Air. I use Thunderbird as my email client and I have many folders that live within my Local Folders. When I transferred all the data from the older Mac to the new Mac via iCloud, and set up my new mail account (IMAP), the folders did not download into the program. I've tried using Subscribe but none of my pre-existing folders show up. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I have moved to a new computer and transferred my Thunderbird account to it without any problems. However, I wanted to do a backup of my profiles, etc, but the old Thunderbird backup link no longer works. Has it been discontinued, and if so, what replaces it?

hi, I'm switching from 1 PC to another. I can download Thunderbird easily, however when I try to open, I get a popup saying profile missing. and I can't open Thunderbird. no idea what happened. any advice please? thank you! Jeff

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.

My computer suddenly started the above error message for multiple programs. The local computer shop was able to sort out what appeared to be the root cause and that recovered some things but I still needed to reinstall a number of programs.

The program I am terrified of reinstalling is Thunderbird. All my emails on five email accounts since 2011 are stored in TB and I naturally do not want to lose any of them.

The major problems are the computer is running Win7 Enterprise and I am 82 years old so I am prone to needing things spelt out in greater detail than many others.

Can anyone provide a way to reset the program permissions (preferable) or identify the best way to reinstall and still access all my historic emails?

Thank you

I want to move my TB data store to a different drive but am unsure whether just to move the profile folder or all the other stuff like installs.ini as well. I have changed the datastore entry in settings, but do I need to modify the profiles.ini file as well, and if so what should it be changed to? At present it is in c:\users\mike\app data\roaming\thunderbird and I want it to go to D:\mail profiles. I'd be grateful for advice please. Thanks Mike Phillips

"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.

Maybe a red herring: I was in the middle of doing a Documents folder backup when I decided to open Thunderbird for some reason. Got an Unable to Load Profile type of message. And my attempts at a fix seem to just send me further down a rabbit hole. I started out by renaming my profile.ini file, but I really didn't know what the heck I was doing and possibly caused more harm than good. Then I tried to find my profile file/folder itself, using the Thunderbird > Troubleshooting > Profile Folder path and doing an import from inside TBird but that ended up with various problems such as drilling down to the profile folder from within TBird but then when I clicked Select Folder in Thunderbird, that didn't trigger any sort of import.

I also spent a good deal of time trying to find my AppData folder, finally being able to view it (a hidden folder, apparently), and saw several recently-dated profile types of folders, but again, I couldn't manage to "hook up" any of those folder/files from starting inside TBird and selecting Import... I ended up just stuck inside a folder, not triggering any Importing activity.

Finally I found a profile folder (5yed...) at a higher level on my PC than inside that long AppData Roaming Thunderbird path. THIS profile was inside: D:\DOCS\Thunderbird\Profiles

Now THAT folder I managed to get an Import to trigger. But the result was an Error Message telling me to go find my Error Console. Can you please see the attached Error Code display screengrab and tell me there's hope that this was at least the right file but just poor results that I can fix somehow???

The following is my copy/paste of the text I see in the Error Console display that's in my screengrab after trying to import the above 5yed... profile, in case it helps you see it better:

1765349209272 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Also attached below are also:

• a screengrab of a set of profiles I found, but when I drilled down to them from within TBird's Import selections and clicked Select Folder, as far as I got was an open folder, or something like that.
• Thunderbird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.
• Message telling me to see the Error Console. The message appeared right after I tried importing the profile that's stated in TBird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.

Here's the copy/paste of the Error Console message display after my try at importing the profile that is in the path that TBird's Troubleshooting Info page "Profile Folder" states (maybe it's the same as my 5yed...profile import try's Error Console display, dunno:

1765353636640 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Thanks for any help in getting through this.

I do not understand how profiles work, and hence don't know how to fix my problem. I had a problem with my printer connection, and tried to solve it by rolling back my Linux O/S, (using Timeshift) to a date prior to the printer not connecting. (It didn't help.) But what it *did* do was to screw up my TB, which when I tried to open it, after the roll-back, complained that the TB profile was "newer", and I needed to create a new one. I did this, but then found that all my old emails had disappeared and it had started a complete new collection of emails, and all the mail folders had disappeared . I went back to the data backups from prior to the rollback, (using Cronopete), and was able to find the TB profile (and 5 years' worth of old emails) in the .Thunderbird folder in the Home directory. And I have pursued the profile manager in TB, and located the profile from before my roll-back. But I can't figure out how to recover this old one. I have a button "Set as Default", (I hesitated to commit to this - should I?), and another for "Launch Profile". But when I click on this last, it drops right back into the requirement to create a new profile. I already have one new profile, (which was created when I tried to sign on to TB after the roll-back.) I can't see much point in making yet another one. And I don't really understand how the data are stored in the profile in any case. (emails seem to be in a Mail folder, but are scattered about in a whole series of sub-folders and files within the Mail folder). And some of the numbered "profiles" seem to refer to things other than Thuderbird, (they lack any folder named "Mail".)