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I thought original profile would save all my bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. I created a second profile for work, but that also does not contain any of my bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. I imported my bookmarks and other history/passwords from EDGE. I did this in my work profile because I couldn't get my original profile to import anything. I signed into work with my main firefox e-mail and exported bookmarks to HTML so I could upload it in my original profile. The original profile now wont log in and says I need a different e-mail account, so I'll lose everything on my original profile. It is ridiculous that my profiles don't have the same log on and don't use the same e-mail. I need someone to help me recover my system to normal working function. This has been a horrible experience and profiles are unusable.

Yes, I'd like to use the same account on both of my profiles.

I understand that for some users, this may be confusing.

In my case, the only reason for different profiles is that I need to use a Proxy Server for some websites, and no proxy for other websites. Manually switching proxy settings is painful, and doing so causes traffic for my other tabs/windows to go to the proxy, which I do not want.

I have a main (set of) windows (and its tabs) going straight to the internet, then I have a separate window (and its tabs) configured to go through a proxy (SOCKS5 in this case). I want all other settings, bookmarks, passwords, etc. to be identical to both. I end up having to logout of my main profile, log into the other profile to sync settings, log out of there, and log back into my main profile.

Is there a valid technical reason why an account on the same FireFox installation cannot be shared between two profiles?

I can do this on multiple computers (same account, different computers/profile), seems odd it is restricted to not allow on the same computer.

I have an alternative solution: Install FireFox natively, then install FireFox as AUR or FlatPak, but not sure this will collide as this both uses the same profile directory. Hum...

Wayne

I have moved my Thunderbird data from drive C:\xxx\Thunderbird to N:\xxx\Thunderbird. The Thunderbird program remains on "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird" How do I tell Thunderbird to find its data on the N: drive?

     Thank you,    Art Lieberman

06 May 2026 USA Just to inform users:

All mailboxes and all mail in profile are catastrophically and irretrievably deleted when I: 1. Change the location of the profile folder. 2. Make appropriate change in profiles.ini reflecting the location change. 3. Launch Thunderbird in Offline Mode (launching in OFFLINE mode is the fatal event). 4. Mailboxes will appear during this one launched session

    but

5. If Thunderbird is closed while still OFFLINE, then a re-launch of Thunderbird in any state will reveal

     that all mailboxes and all mail have been deleted.

All mailboxes, and of course, all mail in the profile are catastrophically and irretrievably deleted. I was lucky that I made a backup before changing profile location.

The deletion of mail and mailboxes occur at the close of Thunderbird's OFFLINE state. An examination of the profile folder indicates the destruction has occurred upon closing of Thunderbird in OFFLINE state.

It is not the re-launch of Thunderbird that causes the catastrophic deletion. The deletion occurred when Thunderbird was closed in its OFFLINE state.

To successfully change the profile location I must: 1. Make the change to profile location. 2. Make the appropriate change to profiles.ini 3. BE SURE to make the FIRST LAUNCH of Thunderbird in ONLINE mode--ONLINE only. 4. Once 1,2,3 are done, then Thunderbird does not corrupt the profile folder.

Conditions that MIGHT make my configuration uniquely affected: 1. I use Proton Mail Bridge in conjunction with Thunderbird. 2. My Profile folder is on a network share that is letter-mapped in Windows. 3. I have about 10 email addresses in Thunderbird that are Outlook IMAP, Gmail IMAP, and of course, Proton Mail.

I've been using Thunderbird a couple of years in this configuration with no problems. I just decided to rename my profile. So, this is my first discovery of the problem.

After closing Firefox, I often get a message for "creating a new profile". It seems difficult to do this and it would be very helpful to have a link where this can be easily done. Thanks for all your help. Alok Bhargava [edited email from community support forum]

Help! I updated my account to a new email months ago. I have been trying to set up a new different profile. Copying a profile or trying to add a profile adds the newly made profile to my old email address instead of my new email address. In the new profiles created, I am unable to login to my new email and password.

I have a problem with the browser automatically starting when I start my PC. I have this feature disabled (!) ("Open Firefox automatically when your computer starts up" turned OFF) Everything was fine, but then I started using the "profiles" feature - browser start's to open automatically when i start up my pc.

when I created a new profile (in addition to the main one). The problem appeared, and that was a long time ago (at least half of year ago it was already as now). I hoped that it would be fixed and didn't write to support. Windows and the browser itself have been updated several times since then - this did not help.

Changing the settings in different profiles, creating / deleting them, and other basic actions did not help. What happens is that the browser ALWAYS opens when I start the PC (Profile selection tab, i have turned ON "Select profile when Firefox start up")

I tried turn off \ delete all plugins, turn on\turn off almost every default setting, no effect. What should i do?

Browser version - 150.0 (64-bit) (from "settings-about firefox") Windows 11 Pro 25H2

Currently have 4 profiles in Firefox - but problem appeared after creation on 2nd profile. "Open Firefox automatically when your computer starts up" turned off in every profile.

Hello All,

I'm using Firefox (149.0.2 snap) with LUbuntu 24.04.4 LTS. Because of a wrong graphic driver, I had to turn off hardware acceleration in FF.

When FF is started the Initial "Firefox - Choose User Profile" is unreadable (see attached : wrong_screen.jpg), but if I continue (click somewhere in the window) , all the opened tabs are readable.

Once in FF, if I want to select another profile from the application menu -> .. -> manage profiles, then the "Choose User Profile" window is fine (see attached : good_screen.jpg).

I tried to start FF with the "-P" option to specify wanted profile but it continues to start with the unreadable "Choose User Profile" window.

Could someone give me a solution, except finding the good hardware driver for my computer?

Thanks Bouilla.

Hi! I love Firefox, but on updates when my account signs out. I also lose all my Firefox profiles. Even when I sign in again, and sync everything on my Firefox account, I lose my primary and secondary profiles. Whilst it restores my bookmarks and extensions on my account. I lose my bookmarks etc. on my secondary profile.

I'm using FF on both Windows 11 and android, but this problem only effects Windows 11.

Cheers :)

Maybe a red herring: I was in the middle of doing a Documents folder backup when I decided to open Thunderbird for some reason. Got an Unable to Load Profile type of message. And my attempts at a fix seem to just send me further down a rabbit hole. I started out by renaming my profile.ini file, but I really didn't know what the heck I was doing and possibly caused more harm than good. Then I tried to find my profile file/folder itself, using the Thunderbird > Troubleshooting > Profile Folder path and doing an import from inside TBird but that ended up with various problems such as drilling down to the profile folder from within TBird but then when I clicked Select Folder in Thunderbird, that didn't trigger any sort of import.

I also spent a good deal of time trying to find my AppData folder, finally being able to view it (a hidden folder, apparently), and saw several recently-dated profile types of folders, but again, I couldn't manage to "hook up" any of those folder/files from starting inside TBird and selecting Import... I ended up just stuck inside a folder, not triggering any Importing activity.

Finally I found a profile folder (5yed...) at a higher level on my PC than inside that long AppData Roaming Thunderbird path. THIS profile was inside: D:\DOCS\Thunderbird\Profiles

Now THAT folder I managed to get an Import to trigger. But the result was an Error Message telling me to go find my Error Console. Can you please see the attached Error Code display screengrab and tell me there's hope that this was at least the right file but just poor results that I can fix somehow???

The following is my copy/paste of the text I see in the Error Console display that's in my screengrab after trying to import the above 5yed... profile, in case it helps you see it better:

1765349209272 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Also attached below are also:

• a screengrab of a set of profiles I found, but when I drilled down to them from within TBird's Import selections and clicked Select Folder, as far as I got was an open folder, or something like that.
• Thunderbird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.
• Message telling me to see the Error Console. The message appeared right after I tried importing the profile that's stated in TBird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.

Here's the copy/paste of the Error Console message display after my try at importing the profile that is in the path that TBird's Troubleshooting Info page "Profile Folder" states (maybe it's the same as my 5yed...profile import try's Error Console display, dunno:

1765353636640 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Thanks for any help in getting through this.

new firefox update today plus windows update - get message "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional because one of Firefox's files is in use by another application. Some security software can cause this problem." Have tried to restore - no luck. Other bookmarks - empty.

Lost all bookmarks

Updating the old question I have as I have attached more detailed information.

Same profile existing in Thunderbird and one is taking up 100 GB space. The Cloud station folder was setup before, and I have no history of it, it might be a shared drive, I don't know why it takes up 100 gb of space and it has a same copy on the Users profile with lesser storage around 33 gb. Can somebody help, i'm not deleting any profiles cause I don't want to accidentally delete emails and the profile has emails older than 2020.

I need to free up some space on this machine without losing the emails as disk is getting full because of this problem.

Attached screenshots

I have been using Thunderbird since its first incarnation. I currently monitor (some for non-profits, some my own) five email accounts in Thunderbird. They are all IMAP accounts. However, my own main account also has an extensive system of local folders that adds up to about 12GB of data, and probably over 100 folders (don't ask; it was necessary until I retired last year, but I need to keep all of those saved emails, as I still access them frequently).

I've searched the forums and have found good information on moving Tbird to a new computer, but that's not what I'm looking for. Chances are what I need is here, and I've missed it, so please forgive if I'm rehashing old questions.

Currently, my Thunderbird profile and folders are stored on my C: drive, as is the default. I have been manually backing them up several times a week (for years) to OneDrive, because I can't afford to lose everything if my laptop decides to bite the dust. Using that method, I've successfully moved the setup to a new computer several times. I'm not sure why simply redirecting the setup to a different location on the same system has been a bugbear for me. ::smile::

It would be much less labor-intensive if I can simply point Thunderbird to the OneDrive files so they are always up-to-date and "there," should I need to make a computer change again.

Note, that I am not looking to access the Tbird installation with multiple computers.

I have tried (and failed) to do this in the past. Either my emails are not there, my address books are missing, or a variety of other issues that indicate an incomplete move.

I'm ready to give it another shot, and I appreciate your time and help.

[Profile2] Name=default-release IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/dzsmofpl.default-release [Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/g92ibtwu.default Default=1 [Profile0] Name=default-esr IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/2i2jua4d.default-esr [General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2 [Install712DAF5A23ABECDC] Default=Profiles/2i2jua4d.default-esr Locked=1 [InstallFEE05927A5AEB8AE] Default=Profiles/dzsmofpl.default-release Locked=1

Hi all, I used to run two Firefox instances on the same computer, each one using a different account (as I mentioned in the Subject), but I don't remember how I managed this, so now that I moved to a new computer I can't reproduce it! Thanks for helping, if anyone knows. Regards, Mike