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Hi everyone,

My antivirus as quarantined 2 files from my TB profile:

• d:\internet profiles\thunderbird\profiles\z3rq1w7t.default\prefs.js
• d:\internet profiles\thunderbird\profiles\z3rq1w7t.default\virtualfolders.dat

I asked the antivirus to restore them, but the damage is done. TB has lost track of everything I’d stored over the years, including my email accounts, emails, preferences, etc. It’s like a fresh install.

But I can see that my profile still contains about 5 bg of data. So everything’s there, but it seems it no longer knows how to access it.

As you can see, my profile isn’t buried in the depths of Windows; it’s on my D drive. Perhaps I just need to ‘reconnect’ TB to the correct profile, but I don’t know how to do that anymore…

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance. Guy

i have been with Firefox since it started and now you have changed it to the pint where i am leaving it . i want my original profile i do not want any old profiles where i lose everything like bookmarks and everything i have added extensions you forced me to leave to leave unless i can keep the old profile always see you Firefox you have just forced me to go to chrome thanks a lot unless i can keep the old profile original prpofile and still update the versions as need ed other wise good bye to you

I created a user profile for IMAP and all was OK....Until I deleted the profile for POP and I lost all e-mail folders that I didn't move to IMAP. My PC is running Linux Mint. How do I get my lost e-mails?

I'm a bit puzzled here. Initially, I tried to use the new built-in VPN for only a single domain. That doesn't work at all. Until it does, I tried to get it through other ways. Containers don't work, private windows neither, they both just inherit the global VPN setting.

So I moved on to profiles. The web found me a Mozilla support topic that suggested to open about:profiles and create a new one. Did that, opened a window for it, but couldn't get it to reopen on any easy path, just through opening about:profiles and clicking one of the many buttons again.

Then I found another description that used the "Profiles" menu. Never seen that before (probably because the menu bar isn't visible by default). Created a new profile there, too, and opened it. After restarting Firefox, all was gone! My original profile with everything was totally inaccessible, like a full data loss. Google search AI in a Chrome browser helped me out and explained what I need to do (in about:profiles, select the old one as default, then restart) to get my environment back. After that I deleted all newly created profiles and then their directories again.

Started over with a new "new" profile and continued there. Now I wanted to activate the VPN in there. It asked me to log in again, which was a good sign because finally I got a Firefox window that didn't know about the other window. But then the next failure: I couldn't log in with my credentials because that profile was already used in the other window/profile. Again, they're not completely separated from each other and there's some hidden link between them.

So, do I need a new Firefox/Mozilla account only for a separate Firefox profile? I can happily use my one account on different devices but not on the same device? Can I unlink the main profile from my account again? I don't see a logout button anywhere, I'm just logged in invisibly.

I want to keep the original profile but the process is confusing to me. Can you tell me a simple way to keep the original profile or else set the original for me.

Thanks

Boyd Proctor

7-1-26: Problem when I updated/downloaded Thunderbird 152.0.1. When I try to open, a dialog box asks if I want to create a new profile. By mistake I clicked the "new profile button" but didn't create a new profile since I want to use my previous profile just as with past upgrades. However, I couldn't move past that screen so I closed Thunderbird. Then when I try to re-open Thunderbird, I get that same dialog box and can't move forward. What can I do? Your assistance is truly appreciated, Rick

Hi, I am about to transfer my profile to a new computer, and have noticed that my profile contains many empty files - about 300 AlternateServices-???.txt, and about 200 folderCache-???.json files.

Can I safely delete these?

Many thanks!

The Issue: I want to copy all bookmarks/Logins/PW from original into two additional already created but not used Profiles. Hence, I have created 3 desired profiles.

I want to copy into each profile the "Original" Bookmarks/Logins/PW nothing else matters to me, i can go to each profile and modify its settings after that and I have read the device Sync considerations.

At this stage, do I abandon the already created 2 additional Profiles and follow the Copy to New Profile procedures outlined in FAQs?

The benefit to my current state is I could copy in "Original" Bookmarks/Logins/PWs to the newly create profiles that are vacant I could then go into each profile to delete the non-relevant data.'

I have read the FAQ differences for Containers vs Profiles and still feel Profiles is best for me. I have also read Sync and the associated threads in FAQ. I have also read Copy from "Original" profile but it seems to apply when creating a Profile.

In the Original profil, I have three Bookmark sub-folders and over 200 bookmarks, plus over 480 Login/PWs. I wanted something like Profiles feature, to put my personal (PW, Bookmarks & Logins) into its own areas' Profile. The use case is Original I use for learning, Personal for banking and medical, the 3rd I have setup one Not For Profit Organization Profile. Each has relevant bookmarks/Logins.PW.

So I created my Profiles. Then realized the PW/Bookmarks/Logins are truly separated.

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

I've used thunderbird for years. Now I can't get it back. I tried a clean uninstall/reinstall. Downloaded from the thunderbird site. Seems to install fine, but then says no profile recognized. I put some old profiles in the appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles in desperation, but still no luck. My clean uninstall did involve registry entries (Revo-Uninstall). So I'd like to get a clean start with Thunderbird, but it won't let me. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. I dread the idea of using another email after all these years!

I'm asking this question so I can post some helpful information for people wanting to create a backup of their profile.

If you are using Windows OS and you got your download from the official website: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

How do you locate the correct folder to backup? The backup must contain everything, profiles, mail accounts, emails, address books, calendar, preferences - the lot. The backup can be used to transfer between computers.

I have an account on Ubuntu that has several mailboxes. I need to shift (migrate) this to a new computer with Debian 13. So far I have tried to follow the idea of copying the hidden thunderbird folder. When I start Thunderbird it has a "Setup your existing email address" page.

This is not easy.

после обновления в панели инструментов появилась вкладка профили и она мне даром не нужна но хуже всего что теперь файрфокс каждый раз перед запуском заставляет выбирать профиль и ни какие настройки не помогают! что только не пробовал все бесполезно -- вечно выскакиевает это окно с выбором профиля! какой [edited] мог такое придумать??? и как избавится от эт ого [edited]!!! мне нужен обычный браузер каким он был до версии 150 без [edited] вкладок и [edited] ИИ

Get Messages doesn't work anymore. I created another profile with the same email address and it works fine. The issue is that I lost all my info, addresses, and most importantly the Calendar. I've been messing around with this all in trying to import that info into the new profile, but failing. I copied calendar-data to the new profile, but it doesn't show up. Can someone please help! Thanks, Paul

MacOS 15.5

I accidentally deleted my Firefox profile not knowing its criticality. When trying to open Firefox, I receive "Profile Missing. You're Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.".

1. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox to no success 2. In the Library/Application Support directory, there is no Firefox or Mozilla folder 3. In the Library/Caches directory, there is no Firefox or Mozilla folder 4. I have tried opening Firefox by pressing option + click, no change in behaviour

I have my personal account with my personal email setup in both my home PC and laptop. I want to setup a new user profile linked to a work email to hold those passwords and bookmarks separately, and be able to sync it when using my laptop as well. I would also like to be able to have both accounts open at the same time in different windows (i.e. a "work window" with the work account, and a "personal window" with my personal account)

Is this possible? How would I go about it? I looked around the about:profiles tab, but that seems to only configure profiles for my already logged in account (the personal one). I think that what I should do is create a new firefox account with my work email and give that account a profile, but I don't know if I can be logged in to 2 accounts at the same time, and I'm not sure Firefox will show me both profiles at startup, or only the ones linked to the currently logged in account. I haven't tried this because I'm unsure if I could lose my currently open tabs.

In "manage profiles" I see where to delete the extra profile that was created and I don't want. Thanks to Cetaseus1. my question is does deleting a profile delete all the bookmarks? there is an info box that warns that bookmarks will be deleted including my 30,000+ bookmarks that were rolled over to this unwanted profile that just appeared. My intent is to have one remaining profile and all my bookmarks. I am hesitant to delete a profile and loose all those bookmarks. I won't delete until Mozilla assures me that I won't lose the bookmarks in the other profile. Thanks.

I'm trying to trim down my hard drive, and I see that my Profiles folder has 2 ImapMail subfolders. In the first of them, imap-gmail, I have 14 All Mail files numbered "-1" to "-13" plus the most recent All Mail (today's date), unnumbered. Most of these All Mail files are quite large. Can I delete all of them except the most recent, unnumbered one? In the second subfolder, imap-gmail1, the files are all from before 2025, and instead of multiple "All Mail" files I have multiple "rstmp" files. What's the deal? Can I delete this whole folder? Is it a backup? Thanks for your help. FYI, I'm up to date in Windows 11 and Thunderbird, with a fairly new computer. I hope I've provided enough into. Looking forward to your help. all the best, Steve

Hi ... I have carefully followed the instructions but when Icopy and paste ihe file involved - it seems to transfer - but NO PROMPT to overwrite appears. What might I be doing wrong?