Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello I'm using TB 128 esr / flatpak on Ubuntu 25.04. I'm satisfied, but I want to install Thunderbird in parallel before switching to this version. https://support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/installer-thunderbird-sous-linux#w_changing-channels I read and managed to install TB "monthly beta" by extracting the tar file. It wasn't possible to retrieve the profile via the zip file because it's 2.4 GB. It seems to work, even though it uses quite a bit of CPU power, ~20%!

1/ Anyway, my main interest would be to have a usage similar to Firefox standalone, which I can use from my computer to my laptop :-) with the same profile stored on an SSD data drive. I don't want to install the profile on my computer or laptop system drives!

2/ How do I launch this version at startup?

REgards

I am running Thunderbird vers 127 (I think) on Win 10. When I try to start it all I get is the error -

"A newer version of Thunderbird may have made changes to your profile which are no longer compatible with this older version. Use this profile only with that newer version, or create a new profile for this installation of Thunderbird. Creating a new profile requires setting up your accounts, calendars and add-ons again..".

How do I get back to my profile? All was fine until May 7th when I went on hols but but this happened when I tried to restart on 19th May (so don't think it has updated to vers 128)

Any help much appreciated as this is a complicated profile and would take an age to re-build. (I have got a coy of the relevant profile as a backup)

I just installed Thunderbird on a second computer and I'm having serious issues with my email. The install recognized me without having to log in with my password. However almost all the emails are missing with the exception of one folder called Trash. There is nothing in the inbox and no sub-folders are showing. I logged out and then reopened Thunderbird and again it opened without asking for my password. It's very strange and alarming quite frankly. Everything worked quite well on the first computer so what gives with fiasco? Unless somebody comes up with a solid answer and fixes this, it will be the last time I use Thunderbird. Patrick

Hi Guys,

Thunderbird version 128 is missing in the release page - https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/

Do look into this.

Regards, Asif

I am attempting to install Thunderbird on a new laptop and move personal folders from old to new PC. The installation process finds my email address and ISP information but fails with incorrect password.

Steps - 1. enter user name 2. enter email address 3. install finds correct ISP information 4. accept ISP information without changes 5. enter email password 6. process popup say incorrect user name, ISP info or password 7. login to ATT.NET successfully which indicates to me that the userid and password are correct for email account.

what other information could I supply to assist with problem resolution? I do not know what to do next.

Thank you, Neal

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.

Moving from a Win 7 (v. 115.8.1) to Win 10 (v. 138.0.1) installation. I don't keep my profile in the default location in AppData but rather on a separate drive for data G:\tanguero88\mail\Thunderbird\... which on the new computer would just be H:\Thunderbird\ ... (i.e., not the same path).

No problem following the instructions at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer and even editing profiles.ini if necessary. The concern that I have is that the profile location is hardcoded in several files withing the profile folder, specifically prefs.js, folderCache.json, permissions.sqlite (binary file), addonStartup.json.lz4 (binary file) and extensions.json.

E.g. especially in prefs.js there are many user_pref entries that have the foldername embedded such as this one:

user_pref("extensions.bootstrappedAddons", "{\"es-AR@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org\":{\"version\":\"2.6.3.1\",\"type\":\"dictionary\",\"descriptor\":\"G:\\\\tanguero88\\\\Mail\\\\Thunderbird\\\\Profiles\\\\p271pzrc.default\\\\extensions\\\\es-AR@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org\",\"multiprocessCompatible\":false,\"runInSafeMode\":false,\"dependencies\":[],\"hasEmbeddedWebExtension\":false},\"pt-PT@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org\":{\"version\":\"18.4.18.2\",\"type\":\"dictionary\",\"descriptor\":\"G:\\\\tanguero88\\\\Mail\\\\Thunderbird\\\\Profiles\\\\p271pzrc.default\\\\extensions\\\\pt-PT@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org\",\"multiprocessCompatible\":false,\"runInSafeMode\":false,\"dependencies\":[],\"hasEmbeddedWebExtension\":false}}");

and others with pointers to addons and some whose function is not really evident.

Obviously, just copying the folder to the new computer and pointing the new Thunderbird installation to the new folder is not going to update these hardcoded filenames in the new installation without some kind of a "smart" import feature that makes all these little changes. It seems quite tedious (though not impossible) to go in with a text editor and do all these manually, though even then the .lz4 and .sqlite are binary files so not that easy either. And if I don't update, it would seem that something, sooner or later, will break!

This does not seem to have been documented in any of the articles on the subject that I've read. So what's the deal? Will Thunderbird recreate these? Will it choke on it? Will I just silently lose whatever settings these user preferences correspond to?

Thanks!

I am attempting to transfer my Thunderbird Profile from and old computer (call it "SOURCE") to a new computer ("TARGET"). I have tried everything prescribed in the documentation. It fails every time.

[1] I tried importing the ".Thunderbird\Profiles\xyz.default: folder from SOURCE to TARGET (Tools -> Import). It starts the import, but soon aborts with the incomprehensible message:

1747152229330 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons Found 0 public keys and 0 secret keys (0 protected, 0 unprotected) RNPLib.jsm:559:15 1747152229736 addons.xpi WARN Addon with ID thunderbird-compact-light@mozilla.org already installed, older version will be disabled 1747152229736 addons.xpi WARN Addon with ID thunderbird-compact-dark@mozilla.org already installed, older version will be disabled Uncaught NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE: Component returned failure code: 0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE) [nsIWebProgress.addProgressListener] <anonymous> chrome://messenger/content/aboutMessage.js:119 aboutMessage.js:119 1747152289419 Toolkit.Telemetry WARN TelemetryStorage::_scanArchive - have seen this id before: e4a0732e-f511-4cb6-ba38-be42dbd2b48f, overwrite: false Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo] _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:659 _importMailMessages resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:588 _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:248 2 ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:659

I have tried importing over a network, and also after copying the whole Profile from SOURCE to TARGET first, in an intermediate work area.

[2] I can't Zip my Profile, it's 16GB.

[3] I tried manually copying the profile directly from SOURCE to TARGET's "C:\Users\myLoginID\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\". When I start Thunderbird, it only shows the first few email folders, the rest are missing.

I have used this procedure successfully many years ago between two other computers.

I am desperate, I put my trust in Thunderbird, and now I cannot move forward, my business is in jeopardy. My old computer has started failing, it's on its last legs, and could soon become unusable.

I contribute to Thunderbird every year, and am a strong supporter.

I have a downloaded application of Thunderbird 78.6.1 on my computer from 2021. With my new Windows 11 Pro I had to download and install 138.0 (64 bit) and I'd like to go back to 78.6.1. Can I install it by running the application from the old download? If so, do I need to uninstall 138.0 first?. Will my address book and emails be safe? Is there any profile mix up I should be concerned about?

Hi, I've successfully downloaded and installed Firefox on my HP laptop with Windows 10 and now attempting to download and install the Thunderbird email client. On Thunderbird.net when I click the Download button, the Donation Page pops up (and I made a donation) then closed that window. I'm then on the Thank You page but there is no prompt to install, so just stuck on the Thank You page. Thunderbird is not appearing in my downloads file. Can you please help?

I recently changed onto the new release channel by installing version 136. I now find that this new release channel appears to have installed version 138, but it is reported as a beta version. I do not want to use beta versions, as I am having a lot of problems with it, so how can I return to a stable release?

Greetings to all, I'm trying to install the Thunderbird email client on a Mac that is running High Sierra. I have downloaded the installation package 3 times from the Thunderbird.net website but each time I try to open one of the .dmg packages I get an error that states the image is corrupt and cannot be opened. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Thunderbird came back looking totally different after a power outage. More like 5 of them in a 30 seconds. No matter what settings I use, it doesn't look like it used to and I do not like what I have now. It is still what I like on my laptop. When I try the export function the file is much larger than the 2 gigs. I do not understand what to do when it says to back it up yourself. I have included a screen shot on how it should look.

I upgraded to update 138. Thunderbird now requires me to enter a Primary Password. I never set a primary password. I cannot send, receive, or make any changes to Thunderbird.

How do I get out of this situation?

I just did a Windows 10 clean install and re-installed Thunderbird (ver 138.0). Because of a foul-up with File History, my most recent backups did not include the Appdata directory. I found a very old backup (2018) and copied the TB profile from that, overwriting the new TB profile folder. That did recover messages, local folders, etc. prior to 2018, but the Address Book still has no entries. There appears to be some data in the old history.mab and abook.mab files that came over, but no contacts appear in any of the address books in the new installation.

Despite the age, it would be of some use to recover the ca. 2018 address book. Suggestions?

I started getting error messages to say that my account was rejected at the server, This happened on all my email accounts. I obviously checked that the configuration of the accounts was correct although they had been working previously. I removed my VPN and Firewall, removed the app and deleted residual data and then re-installed. I still have the same/similar problem, when i try to add an account i get a message saying "Unable to login to Server, probably the wrong configuration, username or password" All of which have been checked multiple times.

I updated to Thunderbird 115.18.0 which is apparently the latest that will run on my Mid 2011 iMac with MacOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra). I updated following the link(s) in the About Thunderbird drop down

However, the Menu Bar is in a foreign language (see image) and I can't find where to fix it. It looks like the wrong update file was grabbed so I need to find a download for Thunderbird 115.18.0 in English for an Intel iMac and High Sierra.

I am troubleshooting a problem that arose after I migrated a Thunderbird mail account from an old Win10 64-bit PC to a new Win11 64-bit PC.

I installed TB on the new machine and opened the program without doing anything else, then closed the program. TB created installs.ini and profiles.ini files, both with the following as the last line:

Locked=1

This line had not been in either .ini file on the old installation.

I edited these files to point to the backed-up TB profile from the old machine, but I decided to leave the Locked=1 line in the .ini files.

Was this a mistake? I have a strange problem with the new installation, which I won't report until I understand what the "Locked=1" means, and whether I was ill-advised to leave it/them in. Fortunately there has been no evident loss of mail data.

Thanks in advance, Phil