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I just upgraded my desktop pc from Windows 10 to 11, and before the upgrade I used the Tools Export function to export my complete Thunderbird profile, so I could import it after the upgrade. Unfortunately the export file cannot be read on my upgraded pc using the Import function - Thunderbird gives me error messages every time, that suggest the exported folder might be corrupted or invalid.

My IMAP emails are fine, as I have set those accounts up from scratch and the folders have now populated with all the emails - the problem is all my filed emails, dating back many years, which were all stored manually in a filing system under Local Folders.

I tried manually copying across the individual files from the extracted back-up folder into my live Thunderbird profile and then reopened Thunderbird...which worked to some extent...as in, all the folders are there, but no emails are showing! It shows no messages under each folder, even though if you look under the Profile you can see that the email files exist.

I tried various ways to bring them in, including zipping one of the folders and trying to import from the zip file (which also brought in a folder but no emails) but even though the email files are clearly there under my profile, Thunderbird shows 0 messages in all my Local Folders. It's as though it is unaware the files exist, so I suspect it needs them to be formally imported somehow?

I would hate to lose the emails, as they document important information and purchases etc over many years, along with archived emails for my charity work, social events, etc. As I said, I can see the files are there but simply copying the files to my profile has only worked to the extent the filing 'structure' is visible, Thunderbird doesn't display any of the emails.

I have included two images...one of my Thunderbird Local Folders as they currently look, and the other showing the backed up files existing in my Profile, which I hope are helpful.

Can anyone help please? I am running a desktop PC on Windows 11. Thanks, David.

Good morning, I had asked a question early on Saturday, but was unavailable the rest of the weekend so just now responding to associate Corey Bryan's answer. I had gotten a message that I am using an unsupported version and they recommend downloading the latest stable version.

He said it appears that I'm on the "Release" channel and most likely want to be on the ESR channel. I also mentioned that I am a cave-man when it comes to anything computer and am very skittish about making any changes as I don't how to straighten out any errors that might occur.

He asked me where I installed Thunderbird from and the answer is that I don't know. It was an IT guy that did it many years ago.

So I guess my questions are, if I've been using this version for years, do I need to or should I update it? If so, if I click on the latest stable version of Thunderbird, will that change anything on my computer, aside from getting the newer version of T-Bird? And will my e-mails in Thunderbird look any different?

Thanks very much for the help. Tony

I have been using Thunderbird on my PC for years and when I got my last PC, I found a article to help me move my files. I am now looking for instructions on how to move my Thunderbird files from the PC to the Mac so I can continue using it as I have been.

so i use ome tv on Firefox using user agent switcher EXTENSION. but when i connect to ome tv i cant flip the camera option in the down left it wont flip and it lags when connecting with other people please fix or help

I am having a problem with receiving emails that are someone replying to an email I sent. I don't hear back from them and when I give them a call to see why they haven't responded they say, yes they have. So I go and type their name in the search bar at the very top and it shows me their responses and says that the email is in my inbox but it isn't! How do I figure out where these emails actually are and how can I get it to stop doing this?

I'm in the process of cleaning up Thunderbird e-mail before moving to a new computer. I started with 11,593 e-mails in my Inbox and 7,799 e-mails in my Sent folder. I'm now down to 7,634 in my Inbox and 4,965 in my Sent folder. I've allocated 2 weeks for this process and found that it's taking me about 3 hours per day to meet my daily goals. I'm finding that I'm spending at LEAST half the time responding to "Empty-Trash/Compact-folders" requests. There are times I can delete 50 e-mails at a time without getting a request. Other times I will try to delete ten e-mails and get the request. With the old version of Thunderbird I could literally delete hundreds of e-mails at a time. Can you help? Russ Bukwa Yardley, PA ps. I have intentionally given you specific numbers. Based on my software- and test-engineering experience, I speculate you need to create a stress test to solve this nagging problem.

Three weeks ago I attempted to migrate my TB profiles from a 2014 mini-mac to a 2024 mini-mac. I thought I did a better job of backing up my profile using CCC than I actually did. In the migration to the new Mac I lost all my subfolders from the last 20 years. Apple created a new Profile and 2 restoration Profiles on the new Sequoia based mini-mac. I wasn't familiar with these and panicked. I copied those files, took them back to the original mac and tried to follow Toad-Hall's method of restoring the subfolders recommended to bmack1 on 23/11/22. However, I failed to carry out the step of going up two levels in the path of the Library to copy the entire "Thunderbird" file and only copied the Largest restoration file. This in turn, "contaminated" the 2014 original Thunderbird mail profile and only an Inbox and Trash subfolder remained. Today, after 3 weeks of searching and reading the generous contributions of this community, I came across a post explaining that the "sbd files" will show the subfolder headings I created in the original sought after Profile. And I found it!!! My problem is I have re-read Toad-Hall's method of re-installing the original Profile and tried to carry that out to the letter by placing the old Profile within a Thunderbird folder and switching it with the current one. But it's still listed as the "Restoration qqg...file" and probably shouldn't be, but I don't want to go any further and risk losing it because I feel I almost have it. So any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

hi in a new win 10 instal most text incl Fire Fox text is made up of letters [font] that are made of thin and thick lines [in the same letter]

i dont know if its a strange font or another problem, i have copied all "font" setting from my other pc where i dont have the problem.

also i cant get spell check to work here dsespite turning it on

its very distracting, would be very gratefull for any suggestones if any one can 

help thanks

Thunderbird not connecting to server. It says timds out and an error occurred connecting to mobile.charter.net. I can neither send or receive emails. This started 8/20/2026

Hi.

Why every time i run thunderbird and if i leave it open too often it bring me the error message for all hotmail/outlook mail accounts i have???

What the heck is happening and how i can solve this?

why just today is all my incoming emails coming to trasha nd not my in box in Thunderbird worked fine in the morning but i am not getting any mail in my in box it is all going to trash

items dragged to overflow menu pop back out, will not stay there - dunno how to fix this.

Hate the "puzzle piece." Involuntarily upgraded to 115.25.0esr and it lost all my bookmarks, addons, history. How do I know which profile was the most recent, before the update added a new profile? How do I find my addons from the previous version? history?

I'm running Firefox 122.0.1 on a Windows 10 desktop PC, with a profile which includes a userChrome.css file which makes several layout and cosmetic changes.

I also have a laptop (also Windows 10) which has an old Firefox 97.0.1 installation, and I'd like to make the same changes on this machine which I'm used to on the main computer. I copied my desktop profile to the laptop, to the same directory as its present profile, but when I rebooted Firefox the transferred profile wasn't recognised.

While doing the transfer I received error messages about some of the folders: Destination path too long. This despite the fact that the registry flag to accept extended paths is set to 1. I had to skip several folders in order to complete the transfer.

Could this be the reason why the new profile isn't being picked up? Or is it because the two Firefoxes are of different versions?

I'd be grateful for any thoughts. Many thanks.

I can no longer send messages through the email client on one of my accounts using Thunderbird, which no longer recognizes my internet service provider's password (but it does receive messages). Everything works fine with my other accounts.

Thank you for your help.

Hello, I'm using the most recent version of Thunderbird on a desktop using Windows 11. Just this morning (Aug 11), all incoming email to all my four accounts are coming in with no subject or correspondents showing and when opened the email is not formatted in HTML, just plain text and lots of code. I have tried several fixes with no success: repair folders, turn off all add-ons and anti-virus protection, uninstalled and reinstalled software. Can you help, please? Thanks!

I have a new laptop and did a backup of my files on the older laptop (Windows Home) and restored them to the new laptop (Windows Pro). Then I installed Thunderbird on the new laptop and I already had e-mails on it. But there are thousands of e-mails in the wrong folders.

The Windows Home has Thunderbird 128.10.oesr (32 bit) and the Windows Pro laptop has Thunderbird 128.9.2esr (64 bit). What should I do? Should I uninstall Thunderbird on the new laptop? Then what?

I need to do something with a profile folder, right? But what?

Please help.

It's a mess right now.

I updated my desktop browser today and now there is an expandable sidebar at the left margin of the window showing tool icons for Tabs from other devices, History and Customize sidebar. I can see how to remove tool icons and how to expand or collapse sidebar but can I remove the sidebar completely? Is this an option? I prefer the old look with the browser web page content extending all the way to the left of the screen, without the narrow vertical sidebar.

Is it possible to open incoming mails in the same window as the list of e-mails, just like in Google? I get distracted from seeing suddenly my e-mail in another window/tab.

Thank you!!

My thanks again to sfhowes, Rick and others for assisting me to get back my ability to once again send e-mails from Thunderbird. Now for the next step.

Just days ago, I migrated my years of Thunderbird e-mails on a POP protocol to IMAP. Before doing so and before also uninstalling my old Thunderbird because of e-mail sending problems and then reinstalling a new version, I saved a profile. Now with the most current version of Thunderbird, I lost (i)a decades worth of saved inbox e-mails (but for the last 2 years), (ii)I lost all of my sent e-mails but a few odd ones, (iii)I lost my archived e-mails in Local Folders and (iv) I lost all of my contacts and saved group e-mail address lists.

My profile is saved on an external hard drive. Obviously the new installed version of Thunderbird must have somehow found the last 2 years of my inbox e-mails but nothing beyond that as mentioned above. Can you share please a recommended procedure where I can better import what I assume I saved correct on the profile I saved twice (I saved a master folder named Profile and separately saved 4 folders - 2 folders ending in default and 2 ending in default-release. Thank you.

Thunderbird just updated and the next time I opened it all of the folders I created and the emails I'm storing within them are missing. I found my profile as directed. I'm not sure if I have a backup of it. I've included the screenshot as you ask for. I know that those folders and emails are there as I was playing around with the the 3 lines > View and when I moved between the different choices I saw my folders/emails are all in there.

Any assistance you can provide is appreciated!