Having looked further at the recovered structure,.. many folders are empty,.. so I am missing many emails... where would Thunderbird have stored files/emails.

If snap installed Thunderbird in a different directory (which it well could have) then you could see the symptoms you listed.

So you need to point to the "old" profile. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles

Hi Wayne,.. many tx for responding,.. have followed your suggestions,.. and I cannot directly find any 'profiles',.. but what I have found in the snap structure.. '/var/lib/snapd/snaps' is a file as follows:- root root 220479488 May 29 10:08 thunderbird_735.snap I was wondering if this is my folder structure all neatly packed away with the profile etc.? as it would seem way too big for libraries dbases and executables... What is my best way forward,.. go back to a snap install or stick with the locally installed App. Many tx Mark

Hi Mark, I'm sorry to hear about this and what a pain! I have a few questions to help get to the bottom of your issue..

1. When you opened Thunderbird and said "the interface was broken, menus were blank, so no ability to look at anything., and error message inferring there was a menu config issue was all that was shown", was it just menus and empty folders? or were the actual accounts missing as well?

• If the accounts were still there, then this should not indicate the wrong profile location was being used.
• If the accounts were however missing and needed to be re-setup (you did this anyways since you re-installed the snap), then it means the incorrect location for the profile was being used. And if the incorrect profile is being used.. I wonder if your initial install of Thunderbird (that was working before yesterday) was installed before we changed the snap to use profile in `~/.thunderbird` instead of `~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird`. This change was made back in February so if you had the Thunderbird snap installed before this change and hadn't opened Thunderbird since (or had automatic snap updates turned off), and then opened Thunderbird yesterday and it updated to a version that uses the new `~/.thunderbird` profile directory, then perhaps it would cause profile issues.

2. After you reinstalled the Thunderbird snap, you said that you imported old local folders.. Were these folders exported when you know Thunderbird was working?

Hi Heather,... Many tx for responding,.. to address Point 1. Interface not responding... All I was presented with was a window ( no meaningful contents, other than an error message),.. with pull down menus at the top,.. but no commands within, just blank spaces.. there were no folders displayed,.. the window was just blank,.. other than a single error message that a menu was not working,.. so no input or control of anything. Now.. AFAIK,.. when I went to bed the previous night,.. all was fine,.. what happened over night I do not know. Having looked at my ~/.thunderbird structure,.. nothing has been updated this year (2025),.. inferring activity is happening somewhere else... And to clarify,.. I removed snap Thunderbird and reinstalled local App thunderbird,.. 'assuming' I would/ could use my local .thunderbird structure, ( not realising this was not case ). I have been using thunderbird snap since a clean install of 24.04 in May last year,... when snap Thunderbird installed and started up I seem to recall,.. it just found everything,.. and just worked,... so never gave it a second thought as to where it was actually storing folders and emails. ( bad mistake) Imported folders were NOT from a recent export,.. I 'assumed' this was where folders were being stored,... but looking at file dates this is not the case... as it all dates back to probably pre May 2024 install,.. I was wondering,.. are my folders wrapped up in the thunderbird_735.snap squashFS file?? ( hoping). Many tx again Mark

Hey Mark thanks for that additional information.

When you say you installed local App thunderbird, was this from an unpacked tarball from thunderbird.net?

I'm glad to hear that the snap just found everything and worked initially. At the release of Ubuntu 24.04 (until this February), the Thunderbird snap used a profile in `~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird`. Currently the profile the snap should use is `~/.thunderbird`. Wherever the profile is that had the local folders is where you should find them still, so check both places and lmk what you find.

For example, on my system where I'm running the snap, I have `/home/heather/.thunderbird/i0873qnd.default/Mail/Local Folders`. If I `snap remove thunderbird`, this Local Folders path is still there. If I re-install the snap, then it uses this same profile and sees the Local Folders again.

Also no `/var/lib/snapd/snaps/thunderbird_735.snap` will not have your local folders. This is the actual snap that snapd has downloaded and installed. The profile is a separate thing (should be ~/.thunderbird) that contains the Local Folder information.

was this from an unpacked tarball from thunderbird.net?,.. install process as below sd captured from history..

1865  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
1866  sudo apt update
1867  sudo apt upgrade -y
1868  sudo apt remove thunderbird
1869  sudo snap remove thunderbird
1870  sudo apt update
1871  sudo apt install thunderbird

My ~/.thunderbird is as follows. mark@mhnuc:~/.thunderbird$ ls

5xa93jqx.default-release   installs.ini     profiles.ini       yg1lgybt.default

'Crash Reports' 'Pending Pings' profiles.ini.org I have tried importing the two folders yg1l... and 5xa9... folders and only confounded the problem,.. as neither of these folders contain my recent 2025 activity... which is still hiding somewhere,.. I hope..

Snap packages store their user data within your home directory in the ~/snap/ directory. This is where I'd start looking for the profile data.

Thankyou for your suggestion,.. I have looked through the snap structure you suggested,.. and I can find nothing that would lead me to believe I have the 2025 email structure I am looking for... Thinking about my situation,.. all the data I have lost is structure / folders created since I started using the snap version of thunderbird from May last year,... hence all 2025 data is MIA,... Many Tx,.. still looking / hoping.. Mark

I have done a 'du | grep 2025',.. as root, from / (root) ... and have found no thunderbird related folders... yet a 'du | grep 2024',.. throws up many thunderbird folders,.. not looking good,.. as there are essentially some 36 folders missing all created with thunderbird snap time..

When you removed the snap, it made a backup (snapshot) and you can find those (stored for 30 days) in /var/lib/snapd/snapshots. Look here and see if you find a thunderbird snapshot. For example the snapshot I see on my system is /var/lib/snapd/snapshots/14_thunderbird_128.11.0esr-1_735.zip and this contains my profile that had local folders.) The snapshot id number is the leading number so I'm looking at snapshot id 14.

You can reinstall the snap and restore this old snapshot number but first I want to point out that the thunderbird you have installed from the ppa is a deb (the historical way of packaging thunderbird for debian derivative OSes) and you do not need to remove this when installing and testing out the snap and restoring from the snapshot. But it would be a good idea to remove your ~/.thunderbird directory so it is not accidentally used since there may be some bug in the snap of which profile directory is being used (~/.thunderbird or ~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird). $ mv ~/.thunderbird ~/.thunderbird.backup

Reinstall the snap $ sudo snap install thunderbird

Now I want to restore the previously identified snapshot but first I want to make sure that only the thunderbird snap will be affected / was saved and updated in this snapshot: $ snap saved --id=14 Set Snap Age Version Rev Size Notes 14 thunderbird 43.1m 128.11.0esr-1 735 32.9MB -

Now that I'm confident I won't be changing the state of any other snaps on my system, I can restore this snapshot: $ sudo snap restore 14

Now when you run the thunderbird snap (run it from the CLI so you know you're running your thunderbird snap and not the deb), you should see your local folders. $ snap run thunderbird

Another way to check is to look in ~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird/9qcv49n8.default/Mail/Local\ Folders/

Let me know how it goes. I'm also happy to setup a quick call to help you troubleshoot and get to the bottom of this a bit quicker :)

Hi Heather,... many many tx.... have the thunderbird snapshot... and looked at its contents... ( having copied it 1st of course ), and there certainly seems to be my mailbox contents... But a full snap reinstall will only show that,.. I am currently backing up all the files I can find to preserve my mailbox... But one question I have is how do I ensure I have a 'fresh copy' of snap thunderbird,.. as this I believe 'may' have been my issue,.. hence my attempt to reinstall thunderbird albeit snap to .deb... yes this was my intention... But how do I ensure that reinvoking snap thunderbird,.. I have a clean fresh install,..

I have done a 'snap saved id=1 and get the following

mark@mhnuc:~$ snap saved --id=1 Set Snap Age Version Rev Size Notes 1 thunderbird 5d08h 128.10.0esr-1 721 12.0GB auto

And as a later task question? is how do I move my mail folder to a another folder/structure/partition,.. as I do not want my mail folder stored in a root file system,.. ( this is a big red flag to me ( but just my humble opinion), I was recently wondering why I was using so much root file system,.. the mailbox explains this,.. so in some ways I am so glad I found this now rather than after an LTS install rebuild,.. and finding my mailbox was stored under root, to me 'root' is for apps and system stuff,.. not app files or personnel documents.. ),.. but I see from your previous posts ,.. this is now not the case... But How do I move the structure,.. do I just need to edit profile.ini... and move the mailbox structure,.. maintaining the same owner and group,.. who should be the owner and group? Will continue backups tomorrow and let you know how things go. But again, a big, big thankyou for your help....

Ok great that you found the mailbox contents you were looking for!

> But one question I have is how do I ensure I have a 'fresh copy' of snap thunderbird?

Perhaps I don't quite understand.. but if you have removed the snap and re-installed it, then it is a fresh copy of the snap. If you have an existing ~/.thunderbird folder already when you re-install the thunderbird snap, then it will use this profile. So if you want a "blank" thunderbird snap, make sure you do not have a ~/.thunderbird folder. Then when you install the snap and run it, it will prompt you to setup all of your accounts again and there will be no local folders. Please let me know if this didn't answer your question.

> how do I move my mail folder to a another folder/structure/partition,.. as I do not want my mail folder stored in a root file system

I assume you're talking about the snapshot that lives in the root filesystem in /var/lib/snapd/snapshots.. I just want to point out that these snapshots of your profile are only created if you deliberately generate them (with `snap save thunderbird' or if you remove the snap) and then they are only stored in this root folder for 30 days. Still I understand that you may want to move these. The backups generated will (by default) go to this location and I'm not sure if you can change that without modifying snapd itself. Modifying profiles.ini will not affect the location of the snapshot.

As far as moving these zip files, you can simply move or copy the snapshot to somewhere in your $HOME folder if you like, change the ownership from root to your user, unpack it, and poke around: $ sudo cp /var/lib/snapd/snapshots/14_thunderbird_128.11.0esr-1_735.zip ~/whatever-directory $ sudo chown heather:heather ~/whatever-directory/14_thunderbird_128.11.0esr-1_735.zip $ unzip 14_thunderbird_128.11.0esr-1_735.zip

I'm happy to help and let me know if you have any other questions :)

Heather.....pls forgive my lack of understanding,.... but if you have removed the snap and re-installed it,.. I mounted the `/var/lib/snapd/snaps/thunderbird_735.snap` file as a loop back mount,.. to have a look inside it,.. and it seems to contain the file folder structure for thunderbird,.. I assumed,.... this would just be re-extracted when I re-enable snap, a may still present 'the old problem' I had.

does sudo snap restore 1 in my use case, create a new .thunderbird structure under my user login? eg ~/.thunderbird ,... ( once I have removed existing entries ) which will then be picked up by snap thunderbird.. when executed? Many tx again

No problem, let me see if I can clear up your confusion..

When I say "removed the snap and re-installed it", I literally mean: $ sudo snap remove thunderbird $ sudo snap install thunderbird

Once you have installed the snap with the above install command, you will see /var/lib/snapd/snaps/thunderbird_735.snap. This is a fresh/blank install of the snap (no profile is used if there is no existing ~/.thunderbird directory).

> I mounted the `/var/lib/snapd/snaps/thunderbird_735.snap` file as a loop back mount

When you install a snap, you will see it in the list of loopback devices (losetup -a).

Did you actually mount this manually with the mount command? Or do you mean you installed the snap (sudo snap install thunderbird) and see it in your list of loopback mounts (losetup -a)?

> does "sudo snap restore 1" in my use case, create a new .thunderbird structure under my user login?

Since your snapshot was using the .thunderbird directory in the snap location (~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird/) instead of the usual ~/.thunderbird (this is what is used by the deb and flatpak), sudo snap restore 1 brings in the .thunderbird directory from the snapshot you are restoring from and puts it in the snap location (~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird/) and now your snap uses it. In your case, the snapshot would be /var/lib/snapd/snapshots/1_thunderbird_128.11.0esr-1_735.zip.

Hi Heather,... tick tick,.. done,.. success!!! Normal service has been resumed.. Ahhh inner self peace and relief now prevails.... So followed your instructions,.. and they worked like a dream. My ~/.thunderbird folder contained just old mbox data,.. tar'd off, and now removed... did a snap install thunderbird,.. but this returned already installed ( dont quite understand this as my history shows it to be removed ),.. so as a precaution i did a 'real' remove and install,.. this conformed completed,.. followed by a snap restore... took a while,.. ( as expected with 12G Mbox ),.. ran snap run thunderbird... and voila,.. everything back the way I left some nights ago... have done an apt remove thunderbird to remove the .deb install.. made sure my docking menu icon brings up snap install.... made another 'proper' backup... so ,.. one last question,.. when things 'died' a few days ago,.. thunderbird menu errors etc blank window ( other than error message )... How do/should I remove snap thunderbird interface,.. and restore snap interface,.. ie without removing app data... ( although this backup was my saviour ) why did the App remove this? and yes make a backup before removal.. could the removal script at least let me/users know, give users some prompts,.. messages to say what it is doing.. as you can appreciate, I waited a long time during the initial removal with no user feedback, ( but app removal failed, not the end of the world, 12G Mbox),.. previous experience has told me to let the system get on 'with it' and not ctrl-C out,... which did cross my mind.

But again Heather, ... a really BIG thankyou for taking the time to give me some guidelines... as I was beginning to despair when I realised the last 18months of emails had gone... and my searches of file structure showed up nothing...

Oh good I'm so glad you got a working snap setup back!!

I really don't know what caused the failure a few days ago so it's hard to say how you should have dealt with it other than what we did (remove snap which generates a snapshot, reinstall snap, restore from snapshot).

You're right that it's not intuitive to a user that when you "snap remove" something, that it by default does a backup and stores it in /var/lib/snapd/snapshots/. And if you don't want a snapshot to be created when you remove a snap, there's a "--purge" option that also users wouldn't just know about. (And if you want to create a snapshot without removing something you can "snap save thunderbird".)

Again, I'm so glad I could help you get back to a working state and don't hesitate to reach out if you have further questions!