I don't know what went wrong, but this can be fixed. Let's work with the copied profile The profiles.ini is a simple text file and if you open in with notepad, it shows the name of the active profile Open that profile in the profiles folder and the files you want should be there. - the addressbook is two files only: abook.sqlite and history.sqlite - ignore others that appear similar. it's just these two that you want . notice their location, in the root folder of the profile. remember that - now, for accounts, they will either be in the imapmail folder for IMAP or the mail folder for POP. click in the folder and you will see account names. click the account name to see the folders. - there, you will see msgfilterrules.dat for each account . remember their location - the Local Folders are at mail\Local Folders

Okay, now that you know where they are, do this: - click help>troubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder' -now, EXIT thunderbird - IMPORTANT - you are now in the active profile, copy and past the files you discovered above to go into the same relative places. you will probably be prompted to overwrite the addressbook files. allow that.

David, Thanks for your reply. Which is the profile I should use? I see "it shows the name of the active profile" and where is it?

[InstallD3F2D26B0DE61CBE] Default=Profiles/6m12bx4f.default-esr Locked=1

[Profile2] Name=default-esr IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/6m12bx4f.default-esr

[InstallD78BF5DD33499EC2] Default=Profiles/btc7lv80.default-release Locked=1

[Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/7pxkimj7.default Default=1

[Profile0] IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/btc7lv80.default-release

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2

The safest approach is to follow my steps to be in the profile - the four steps at the end of my last post.

I am no expert on profiles.ini, but the active one appears to be the one ending in 'default', according to what this URL states: https://kb.mozillazine.org/Profiles.ini_file but I recommend my four steps to be absolutely correct.

David, What you've described seems like it "should" work. Except for one thing. Some of the files in the profiles.ini are nowhere.

I may be understanding this incorrectly. but [Profile1] seems to be the main Profile but 7pxkimj7.default is non-existent.

Other things that make no sense: Need to select true or false for:

https://www.google.com/search?q=stop+thunderbird+from+opening+next+message&oq=stop+thunderbird+from+opening+next+message&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgYIABBFGDkyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg80gEJNTczNDVqMGo0qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

the opposite of what's said.

Have reimaged several times too.

Thanks for your help so far. Still researching ....

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Le's back up, as I don't know what is in the backup. Please post a screenshot of the Thunderbird\profiles folder from the backup. That will list all the profiles in the backup.

David, All is somewhat/mostly well.

Back to original Surface laptop and files. Msgfilter seems fine and Local Folders seem fine.

Not sure what happened originally. I'll mull it over along with the logical answer you provided.

Thanks for all your help.

Take care.

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You are most welcome. :)