The way I use linux is to change distrobutions occasionally but since /home and all other partitiosn are separate from root, the only partition I ever reformat and install is /root. Recently, I was moving from MX Linux I believe to Linux Mint 19.1, for the first time Thunderbird said that it cant read what is there? If I remember the backup file for my thunderbird is something like. ta830vm8.default This hasnt happened to me in about 7 years and since that time so much has changed in linux that the languge is garbled on the net, not only for linux, but even for versions of the same distro. Most posts that I see are ancient and I trying to translate what they mean compared to how things work today, it is difficult The ta830vm8.default file is on my /home partition and has never be altered. It is also in my backup system. Since Firefox could not recognize what I have, I thought maybe I could go to my backup and see if I can bring back everything. I just need to know how to do it for the present time and how it is done today. The other sites keep saying in Windows, or Mac. I need a straight explaination for now, and Linux Mint 19.4. Look forward to hearing from you.