Hi Jay,

This is a peer-to-peer support forum for users, not a place to make a special request of developers. It's unlikely that developers would respond to such a request. There is another place to suggest features, but there's no need to have a Thunderbird function for importing a large profile. You can just move files through the file system.

Before proceeding, would you please say more about your current set-up and what you want to accomplish?

Help/Troubleshooting Info, about:profiles, Create a New Profile, Choose Folder..., browse to the unzipped Profile folder.

I have read thousands of words about how to do it and I’m still irritated because I can’t. My problems started when Thunderbird did an unwanted update and then wanted me to create a new profile. My wife was dying and I’m almost 90 years old.. I’ve tried using the add-on app, but it won’t handle 20 GB. It appeared to import a bit of my profile and then quit. Once an old profile is put into the right place in the Thunderbird folder, how do I get to it.? I read about the profile.INI file. Do I need to modify that? I did a new install after saving the old profile hoping that might work, but it left me still confused. I had trouble getting the SMPT settings, incoming and outgoing settings. Finally have that working. I tried to use the slowest changing version of Thunderbird. I donated money to Thunderbird, but I’ll never do it again because they started changing everything.

Help/Troubleshooting Info, about:profiles, Create a New Profile, Choose Folder..., browse to the unzipped Profile folder.

sfhowes, the "choose folder" function sets where the new profile will be created. How does browsing to the unzipped profile folder there help? Isn't it better to keep all the profiles in the profiles folder? How should Jay import a profile? Does he have to import at all? His old profile is probably still in his profiles folder, just not in use because of possible incompatibility with an upgrade.

The source profile can be anywhere. Place it in the standard location if desired. 'Creating' the profile this way avoids editing the profiles.ini file and guarantees it will be read by TB. If the old profile is still readable by TB, it can be launched from about:profiles. As long as it wasn't created by a newer version of TB than the one installed, it should be readable by the current TB.

sfhowes said

The source profile can be anywhere. Place it in the standard location if desired. 'Creating' the profile this way avoids editing the profiles.ini file and guarantees it will be read by TB. If the old profile is still readable by TB, it can be launched from about:profiles. As long as it wasn't created by a newer version of TB than the one installed, it should be readable by the current TB.

Thanks. I'm still not seeing the connection between creating a new profile and using the old profile, so I'm guessing that Jay may not see it either. And I'd like to know exactly how to guide him. What I have so far is this:

1. Move the old profile into the profiles directory.
2. Create a new profile in the profiles directory.

OK, now there are two profiles in the profiles directory that didn't used to be there. What's next? Isn't there a step for importing the old profile into the newly created profile or something similar?

Then set the preferred profile as the default.

If the old profile is still readable by TB, it can be launched from about:profiles. As long as it wasn't created by a newer version of TB than the one installed, it should be readable by the current TB.

So can Jay just go to about:profiles and set his old profile as the default? If there are no compatitbility issues, why did Thunderbird create a new profile? Or are you talking about the old profile after some kind of process to import it into the newly created profile?