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How to downgrade Thunderbird without losing settings/mails

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by mcon

mcon
mcon

I've been using for a while Debian Sid which includes Thunderbird 68.11.0. Now, for reasons completely unrelated to TB, I would like to switch to a "stable" version (Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana”).

A first attempt keeping my HOME directory as-is (my /home is a mount point, so that's the "easy way") resulted in TB refusing to open my profile and suggesting I to create a new one (TB bundled with Ulyana seems to be "older" and I do not have precise version as I would need to reboot to get it, which I cannot do ATM; if needed I'll do it later).

Redoing all setup would be a major PITA, but doable, if absolutely needed. Risking losing 10+ years worth of emails is completely unacceptable (for me).

I went swiftly back to Debian Sid and all is well, for the time being, but I'm unhappy for other reasons. What is the recommended path in such cases?

Thanks in Advance Mauro

I've been using for a while Debian Sid which includes Thunderbird 68.11.0. Now, for reasons completely unrelated to TB, I would like to switch to a "stable" version (Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana”). A first attempt keeping my HOME directory as-is (my /home is a mount point, so that's the "easy way") resulted in TB refusing to open my profile and suggesting I to create a new one (TB bundled with Ulyana seems to be "older" and I do not have precise version as I would need to reboot to get it, which I cannot do ATM; if needed I'll do it later). Redoing all setup would be a major PITA, but doable, if absolutely needed. Risking losing 10+ years worth of emails is completely unacceptable (for me). I went swiftly back to Debian Sid and all is well, for the time being, but I'm unhappy for other reasons. What is the recommended path in such cases? Thanks in Advance Mauro

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

Start the Thunderbird version which ships with Mint from a shell: thunderbird -profilemanager --allow-downgrade

The -profilemanager switch starts the Profile Manager, where you can select a profile that was previously run in a later version, and --allow-downgrade should allow access for the older version to that profile.

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All Replies (2)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor

Chosen Solution

Start the Thunderbird version which ships with Mint from a shell: thunderbird -profilemanager --allow-downgrade

The -profilemanager switch starts the Profile Manager, where you can select a profile that was previously run in a later version, and --allow-downgrade should allow access for the older version to that profile.

mcon
mcon Question owner

Thanks. I had to use the same command also with Firefox and it worked like charm.