My first suggestion is to check that the copy went where you intended. That is, I sometimes see users copying the thunderbird folder to the thunderbird folder, resulting in a copy that is ignored by Thunderbird. After the copy, your profile should appear in the ...appdata/roaming\thunderbird/profiles folder. That check is just to ensure the copy went properly. Next, you can force the profile by editing the profiles.ini in the roaming/thunderbird folder with the name of the desired profile. (OR, you can achieve that by clicking tools>import>import from a thunderbird installlation, OR, you can click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profiles', click 'about:profiles', click the 'create profile button, click next, enter a short name (such as MYPROFILE), click the choose button to select your profile and then click finish and launch.

And if none of that works, I can assist in copying elements from the profile to the active one. The data is there; we just need to get it to the right place.

Three possibilities:

1. Did you get Thunderbird install from 'Windows App Store' or from this location: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/ If 'Windows App Store' then it thinks the profile is in an entirely different location. Just let us know or unistall the version from Windows App Store and get it from the official webpage.

2. Did you follow this process to perform the copy from one computer to the other - note it's important that Thunderbird is not running on either computer. If you are sure all got copied over ok then no worries, but this is the process:

On old computer

• Exit Thunderbird - it must not be running and this is important.
• In computer search type : %Appdata%
• Select the '%Appdata% file folder
• Click on 'Roaming'
• Copy the 'Thunderbird' folder to external drive.

On new computer

• Exit Thunderbird - it must not be running and this is important.
• In computer search type : %Appdata%
• Select the '%Appdata% file folder
• Click on 'Roaming'
• Delete the 'Thunderbird' folder
• Paste the copied 'Thunderbird' folder from external drive into the 'Roaming' folder

3. re I have tried several Thunderbird versions with the current one being 128.12 0esr (32 bit).

Did you try any version that has a number greater than 128.12 0 ? Did you try the channel called 'Thunderbird Release' which would have installed version 139.0.2 ?

If you tried the 'Release' then you will find your profile folder has been modified so it cannot be used for an earlier version automatically and you will just get option to create a new profile. In which case do the following to fix:

On new computer:

• Exit Thunderbird - it must not be running and this is important.
• In computer search type : %Appdata%
• Select the '%Appdata% file folder
• Click on 'Roaming'
• click on 'Thunderbird' folder
• click on the profile name folder - the same one you used on old computer
• look for this file and delete it: compatibility.ini
• start Thunderbird

Hi guys, thanks for your input on my problem. Much appreciated I have been trying to implement the suggestions received but so far I'm not having a lot of success. While I've been using computers pretty much ever since the early 80s, I'm definitely not very tech savvy, so please bear with me while I try deal with and explain things the best that I can. And the current Thunderbird I'm using was downloaded from the Thunderbird site, not Windows.

In the process of working on what's happening, I realized something that might be contributing to the problem. The old computer that I'm trying to migrate from is not the first computer that I've used Thunderbird on. Eight years ago I migrated the Thunderbird info from yet an older computer, and I can't begin to remember what all was involved from that far back. It worked and that was the goal.

Now this time, the profile folder that I copied from the old computer to the flash drive was named "Thunderbird Data". I tried using that once to no success, so then I renamed it to "Thunderbird" (none of this actually contained the quotation marks) in order to match the destination folder, but that hasn't worked either. My copied source folder is 4.5 GB and as I stated, I have seen many of the Thunderbird file names during the transfer so I'm pretty sure that everything needed is in there but the new program just isn't connecting with it.

I just now copied the "Thunderbird Data" file to the new computer and tried the new profile approach using that folder to connect to it. No luck. I'm at a sticking point again.

I don't know if that sheds any light on the issue, but it's worth a shot.

One other thing, the version I'm currently using (or trying to use) is 140.0 (32-bit).

FANTASTIC!

I was muddling around in the create profile section and suddenly finally realized the problem. Looking at the original default folders, I saw that they were all referred in the profile settings to a folder with a name such as ys1804yj.default. I hadn't done it to that depth before. So I created yet another new profile and connected it to that folder, and everything I had hoped for happened - it's all there just like on the old computer!

This support group is exactly what I needed, it never would have been possible for me otherwise. Now I can go to sleep at night with something else as my last waking thoughts other than worrying if I'm ever going to get my emails to work right.

Thanks folks, you genuinely rock! I'll be making another donation to Mozilla and knowing that its money well spent.

Mike