Thunderbird Community Forum

I just installed a new router and all of a sudden nothing is working properly on my PC. Among other things, I need to fix Thunderbird, and for that I need to find where my thunderbird profile is. The instructions I've seen say to go to troubleshooting information, find profile folder, and click on "open folder." When I do that, nothing happens. (I told you installing the router appears to have broken everything--I don't know how that happened, especially since I was on the phone with tech support for the router for install), and I'm no closer to finding the profile file. I can enter %appdata%\roaming\thunderbird\profiles but that shows me two different profile directories and I don't know which one is the right one. How can I find the correct file and why doesn't troubleshooting information just show me that?

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 have followed your instructions at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer and gotten nowhere all day. on it. You have "Profile Folders", a folder called "Profiles", a bunch of profiles (folders) inside the Profiles folder and profiles in Roaming and in Local paths. When I get the old profile 'k41******' copied to the new computer in both the Roaming folder and the Local folder the Thunderbird program still will not show me the old files. I don't need any of the thousands of emails in the old computer, just the Templates in one account. This should be easy. I should just copy the profile k41***** ect. and paste it into the "Profiles" (notice the pleural there) and then Thunderbird should work. But it does not.

Somewhere between TB 15 and TB 115 (my current), we lost the TB information page which included a link to the profile. Is there some current replacement for that capability? (I'm having a profile problem and would like to see how that looks to TB.)

Thunderbird 128.14.0esr (64-bit) on an M3 Macbook Pro running Sequoia 15.7.4

I have my own domain and email hosting. I recently changed email hosts and am seeing large files in my profile tied to the old email host. I'd like to recover 30+GB if possible but don't want to do anything hasty.

My Library folder looks like

Thunderbird - Profiles -- myprofilename.default-esr --- oldemailhost.com --- oldemailhost-1.com --- oldemailhost-2.com ... --- oldemailhost-4.com --- newemailhost.com --- newmailhost-1.com ... --- newemailhost-4.com ... etc.

The oldemailhost*.com files take up ~30GB. Can I recover that space without hurting anything?

Thanks.

I've been trying to move my Thunderbird data (148.0) from a Win10 to a Win11 machine. I've meticulously followed both the methods outlined at http://mzl.la/1ApHiU3. I have copied my original profiles.ini from the ...AppData\Roaming folder to that location on the new machine, then corrected the drive locations in the file (see attached profiles.ini image). (yes, the correct "j4sqsccb.XXXXXXX" folder is copied to the new installation's root: a bulky several-GB)

In order to try to replicate my original computer's admittedly-awkward installation from long ago, I have added the suffix " -p -no-remote" to the desktop icon's Target field. And on startup, the new T-bird does properly show my original profiles in the Select panel - even though I only ever used the one that functioned correctly, identified as 1 in the profiles.ini file (see Choose User Profile image, IDs X'ed-out).

However, on selecting that profile on the Win11 machine, Thunderbird just takes me to the account setup screen, as if it's unable to locate or load the account settings for that profile.

I'm only doing this clunky method of copying-over out of ignorance; I'd be very happy to simplify the mess I'd created decades ago with my original installation. OR if you think I'm better off wiping all evidence of past installations to start from a clean install, I'll be happy to do that. Please let me know if you need additional info I've failed to provide here!

Also adding images of my ...Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles folder and Installs.ini file, just in case!

Hi folks

When I tried to start up Thunderbird this evening, it has taken me to a set-up page. I seem to have lost all the settings, all my previous (about 3000 !) e-mails in my Inbox.

I obviously don't really want to set it all up again, but it has been working for years without a problem, and then suddenly this happens. I had now a 'warning' message saying that Mozilla Thunderbird wants to make changes to your computer - do you accept? I don't want it to make any changes unless it is to revert back to how it was.

Can anybody help me?

Thanks.

I use Thunderbird 115.18.0 on a Windows 7 machine. I wish to transfer all my Thunderbird data to a machine running Linux Mint 21.3 which has Thunderbird 128.12.0esr. I have not been successful after many tries. Could this be because the Thunderbird revisions are different? If so, can I get 115.18.0 to install on my Mint machine? If not how should I proceed? I have already tried creating a new .thunderbird directory with ********.default directory from the other machine. I have also tried a new .thunderbird directory with a the ********default-release directory as directed by one site.

I deleted my Thunderbird account and created a new one on the same computer. I used a Profile saved on my external hard drive. The address book info was replicated. The hierarchy of folders and their emails were not replicated in the left hand pane. Is there a way to retrieve those folders with their content? Please, I am not super techno-savvy, so take me step by step. Thank you.

I am trying to install Thunderbird into a new computer with Windows 11. When I try to run, it goes to a configuration page but will not connect after finding my account. I have double-checked password, but it says "Unable to log in at server . . . ".

I have uninstalled and reinstalled new program, but get the same response each time. I want to install Thunderbird (and Firefox) and copy my profiles from my old computer to the new one. I am not able to do either. I have followed the online instructions for moving/migrating both, but neither work. Any suggestions?

Rad

Can I use thunderbird with multiple accounts on multiple PC's and stay synchronised?

I have two PC's i want to set up - it seems like i have to create a new account for a second PC rather than pick up the account set up from the first PC.

I am installing Tbird on a Windows 10 instance that I am recovering from backup. There is a default profile that contains a folder for a user in an IMAP domain that no longer exists. Tbird won't start and just spins with a message about a missing IMAP user.

I copied the profile to another backup folder. And then uninstalled and re-installed TB. The "AppData > Roaming > Thunderbird > Profiles" folder(s) are still there but empty. When I start TB it says: "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." The old email is not important now. Should I delete more folders in AppData, or what should I do next?

Hi, I have moved to a new computer and transferred my Thunderbird account to it without any problems. However, I wanted to do a backup of my profiles, etc, but the old Thunderbird backup link no longer works. Has it been discontinued, and if so, what replaces it?

My computer suddenly started the above error message for multiple programs. The local computer shop was able to sort out what appeared to be the root cause and that recovered some things but I still needed to reinstall a number of programs.

The program I am terrified of reinstalling is Thunderbird. All my emails on five email accounts since 2011 are stored in TB and I naturally do not want to lose any of them.

The major problems are the computer is running Win7 Enterprise and I am 82 years old so I am prone to needing things spelt out in greater detail than many others.

Can anyone provide a way to reset the program permissions (preferable) or identify the best way to reinstall and still access all my historic emails?

Thank you

I do not understand how profiles work, and hence don't know how to fix my problem. I had a problem with my printer connection, and tried to solve it by rolling back my Linux O/S, (using Timeshift) to a date prior to the printer not connecting. (It didn't help.) But what it *did* do was to screw up my TB, which when I tried to open it, after the roll-back, complained that the TB profile was "newer", and I needed to create a new one. I did this, but then found that all my old emails had disappeared and it had started a complete new collection of emails, and all the mail folders had disappeared . I went back to the data backups from prior to the rollback, (using Cronopete), and was able to find the TB profile (and 5 years' worth of old emails) in the .Thunderbird folder in the Home directory. And I have pursued the profile manager in TB, and located the profile from before my roll-back. But I can't figure out how to recover this old one. I have a button "Set as Default", (I hesitated to commit to this - should I?), and another for "Launch Profile". But when I click on this last, it drops right back into the requirement to create a new profile. I already have one new profile, (which was created when I tried to sign on to TB after the roll-back.) I can't see much point in making yet another one. And I don't really understand how the data are stored in the profile in any case. (emails seem to be in a Mail folder, but are scattered about in a whole series of sub-folders and files within the Mail folder). And some of the numbered "profiles" seem to refer to things other than Thuderbird, (they lack any folder named "Mail".)

Hi, I have been using TB for many years, when suddenly 4 days ago ( Feb. 1st.) it started as a brand new install, asking to set up a new account, I got no previous warnings or had other issues.

Since then I have done several attempts to get it connected with my profile, among others: - Everything from this article https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data - Importing the Profile from Functions > Import > "Import from another Thunderbird installation" - Reinstalling TB ( without removing the profile)

All of it with no succes, there is no accounts, and no mails, only some empty local folders so I'm running out of good ideas, and I really hope you can help!

BTW, somehow the addressbook has content, as the only thing.

Thanks Best regards Preben

Hi, So I used Thunderbird to create a zipped backup file of my profile. I got the warning that if the file size if more than 2 GB I may want to make a manual backup. I proceeded, and ended up with a file that was 15 GB. I then uninstalled Thunderbird, reinstalled it, and tried to import my backup file. Thunderbird gave an error, saying the file is too large, and I should manually extract it. Okay, I tried, but Windows 11 failed to extract the file. I then used a third-party app to extract the files. This gave me a c2140ucr.default folder that contained three direct subfolders and many, many files. I located my inbox.ca file, which is what I really want, but I cannot find a way to import it into Thunderbird using the Tools menu. Any ideas on how to recover my previous profile would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello, I just enabled the backup sync option for the Firefox web browser (Win 10). What is the equivalent process, or recommended method of enabling a backup for mail folders, calendar entries, address books, settings, etc. of the most current Thunderbird version on a Win 10 PC? I could not find a clear answer in the help forums. Thank you.