As I understand it, you created a new profile and it worked ok, but then copied in the old profile, and problems returned. That indicates the old profile is corrupted in some way. Instead, I would have copied just the local mail into the new profile: copy the mbox files in the old Mail/Local Folders and Mail/<popservername> locations to Mail/Local Folders in the new profile. Add the accounts to the new profile, and copy the abook.sqlite and history.sqlite address book files from the old profile.

Many thanks for the insights - yes it took some time trying, & relearning commands, to figure out what it was going to take to get it working, and what might have got corrupted. Ok "Corrupted Profile"

So this is great, thankyou so much, how to navigate the possible turds in the folder that caused the corruptions so copy from <oldProfileBroke> to exactly same path <newProfile files: abook.sqlite history.sqlite </p>

and the files in folders Mail/*

• .msf

"Local Folders" pop.sonic-3.net smart mailboxes pop.sonic.net pop.sonic-1.net pop.sonic-2.net

~~~ it turns out after trying the above, I don't have the two pop accounts or the "Local Folders" Any thoughts?

I copied from <oldProfileBroke> to a new directory (for new profile ) neilh2" D:\usr\a\n\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\Neilh2 files: abook.sqlite history.sqlite and the files in folders olderMail/* --> Mail/* --> "Local Folders" pop.sonic-3.net smart mailboxes pop.sonic.net pop.sonic-1.net pop.sonic-2.net

startup, and create new profile neilh2 that I pointed to d: drive. thunderbird -p new profile neilh2

D:\usr\a\n\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\Neilh2

In the new profile, you have to add all accounts, POP or IMAP, but the method I suggested allows the old POP mail or Local Folders to be copied into the new profile. It looks like you tried to copy folders instead of just the mbox files, which is much more reliable.

Create a new, empty profile, add the accounts, and copy the mbox files and address books as described.

Ok thanks that makes some sense, thats what I'm after is all the local folder. The mbox files?, I'm not see those unless you mean all files under mail/Local Folders/*.* ~ combos including .msf

The mbox files are the large files with no extension, named after folders, Type = File, e.g. Inbox, Archives, in Mail/Local Folders and Mail/<popservername>, and in .sbd subdirectories. Ignore the like-named .msf files - they are automatically rebuilt on TB restart.

Ouch - appreciate the insights/help and figured out the MBOX is a format for files - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox ok been looking at what does it take to delete all .msf files in a tree - and painfiul with spaces in the file names. eg from MINGW4 that I use "$ find . -type f | grep .msf | xargs rm -v" Which isn't doing it So it turns out I have historical old mail files organized in tree - and the above procedure is not finding them - something is still missing at finding the oldMail structure. I did find folderTree.json - which has some 170 row entries which look folders to me. I have been filing for 15yrs I think I really appreciate your insights/help - but I have spent hours on trying different options, copying 10G of backup into profiles to try again. So maybe there is a simple set of files that recreates the profile but seem that needs to be described/documented somewhere and I can't find it.

Seems to me 1) I can create a new profile (no old turds lying around) and then connect my account and access my imap for current email. Now I need to import the "MBOX files" - so wondering how well the import "MBOX" works - it has to be done for importing from other clients. Anyway break for a coffee and then will look at it later. Again appreciate your suggestions for this deep dive into a recovery on a corrupted profile. Ouch

When you started with the original profile, does https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1923526#c0 describe what you see?

Now I need to import the "MBOX files" - so wondering how well the import "MBOX" works - it has to be done for importing from other clients. Anyway break for a coffee and then will look at it later. Again appreciate your suggestions for this deep dive into a recovery on a corrupted profile. Ouch

There is an add-on, ImportExportTools NG, that will import mbox files, but copying them as described above is simpler and will accomplish the same thing.

In the copied profile, that I selectively deleted files, and by luck got rid of the turd that was causing the client to stop responding, it still has all the accounts and directory structure - so seems I can export them and possible implement a backup. So looking at that profile, for your question, I've only had one pop3 inbox that showed up as duplicate - see circled red below, was inbox-1 I think, and I renamed it to "inbox-delete"

Thanks I have the add-on "ImportExportTools NG" - I was thinking that since it is a tool it will verify the structure, effectively doing a Cpp concept of serialization . Just coping may bring turds. Of course I'm trying to compact and rebuild the folders before export. Seems to be working. Fingers crossed.

128.4.3 has a fix that deals with extra folders like this, but apparently there is an unresolved issue.