Thunderbird Community Forum

My wife and I both have Thunderbird accounts. The issue is that when we open Thunderbird, both accounts show on one screen. Is there any way to separate logins and only show each of our accounts on the screen?

Thanks, Sam Orner

When I opened Thunderbird two days ago it came up with the following message: To use your current email address, fill in your credentials. Thunderbird will automattically search for working and recommended server configurations. It asked for Full Name; Email: and Password. Fearing it was a scam I filled in my server settings manually. My server is Centurylink but my email address is embarqmail.com so when I filled in my info the send was smpt.centurylink.net port 587 (which was fine) The problem was with receive: I guess my old setup was pop.embarqmail.com port 110 and I put in pop.centurylink.net port 995 which is what Centurylink's website called for. Well this one worked and it downloaded 800 messages but no saved folders and the Thunderbird screen layout looks different from the one I am used to. A few minutes later the pop.embarqmail setup downloaded the same messages but still no saved messages. It looks like I have 2 profiles. Did the last one I entered override the old and wipe out files I had stored. Is there a fix for this mess I have created and can I retreive my old folders and messages? I tried doing a system restore and it didn't work due to corrupted files. Oh, I'm still using windows 7. Thanks

Hi, I am hoping that the community can help me find an answer to this. I have two computers that I use for work. The one in the office has TB running all the time and before I leave for the weekend/vacation I would close TB, copy the profile folder to a USB (or copy it to cloud) and then paste the profile folder on my work laptop (at home). While all the settings get copied (local folders structure, addons etc.) as I use IMAP, it downloads all the mail on the new system regardless. I thought that it should have the latest mail downloaded as part of the profile folder, is that not the case? The bigger issue is that none of the Completed Tasks Lists, Templates, etc. get updated. It still shows all the older stuff on the work laptop and no updates carry over from the PC (at work). Going through the profile folder I see multiple copies of the files prefs.js, folderCache.json, global-messages-db.sqlite appended as: prefs-computername.js and folderCache-computername.json etc. (The computername is the name of the PC - office/laptop) The profile name is the same between the two computers. TB is only started after the profile is copied locally. TB version is the same between systems. I am left scratching my head why somethings are copied but not others. Hoping that the community can help me here. Thanks!

Thunderbird is suddenly opening without any of my emails or folders, and asking me to set up an email account - so I put in my email details (I'm with aol) - and it connects to the aol server and my folders re-appear (initially without emails in them, but when I click on the folders the emails start downloading afresh from aol). So it seems that all will be well when the emails are all downloaded again. HOWEVER, after closing Thunderbird and opening it again, all my emails are gone again, and Thunderbird is yet again asking me to set up an account. I can do this again, and the same thing will happen again. Everything is lost again when Thunderbird is closed, and when I start it again, I will be asked to set up an account, and all my emails are gone yet again. I have been using Thunderbird for years and years and years. Suddenly out of the blue this happens, and I'm stuck with using aol's web mail platform directly (not great!!!) Also, Thunderbird suddenly looks different - like it's been updated (which I assumed initially had happened) but the update history still only shows the final release for Windows 7, so this is a bit puzzling, and an odd coincidence that the layout and appearance of Thunderbird has changed at the very same time it stops working for me.

I cannot get thunderbird to run on my computer (it runs fine on my wife's computer). I keep getting the profile can't be loaded error. I have tried the fixes recommend here but none worked.

Hello,

In my Thunderbird Profiles folder, I can drill down to ImapMail. I see multiple subfolders prefixed with my imap server name. eg:

- imap.server-5.com 10.85GB - imap.server-3.com 8.83 GB

and so on. The datestamp on each is different.

Within the two examples above is a large Inbox folder taking up ~8.8GB.

The size doesn't concern me as much as the fact of having two of these. I'd like to understand what Thunderbird is doing under the hood here. Does it create new imap.server-#.com folders periodically as backup/recovery folders?

I'd like to recover space where possible but if these are protective measures, I could live with that. However, if it creates future folders and replicates 8+GB of data multiple times, I'd like to know what steps I can take to free up disk space.

Thanks,

Have been using the 104.9.0esr 64-bit release on Windows 11 for some time now (mostly for email, involving a number of email accounts) and have been generally satisfied...

...but discovered when I started looking into switching over to the 145 default release that I have a capital-P Problem. The first thing recommended on making that change is - sensibly - to back up one's Thunderbird profile. Only as far as I can tell, I don't *have* any such file anywhere on my system. [To answer the obvious question - yes, I've got "View" set in File Explorer such that it should be showing me hidden files.]

I have drilled downward through all the USERS subdirectories on my C: drive. "Default" and "Public" have nothing at all (as one might expect). My personal subdirectory has a Mozilla directory under "Roaming", and both a Firefox and a Thunderbird directory therein, but the only things in the Thunderbird directory are an empty folder labeled "Crash Reports" and a tiny "desktop.ini" file.

There is a "Mozilla Firefox" directory under Program Files, but nothing in that hierarchy looks applicable. There is a "Mozilla Maintenance Service" directory under "Program Files (x86)", but nothing there appears relevant. There is a "Mozilla [alpahnumeric hash]" subdirectory under "Program Data", but nothing there appears relevant.

And in fact, I begin to think I have a bigger issue than I thought I did...because the more I poke at my C: drive, the less I'm seeing...to the extent that I'm not at all sure where the Thunderbird program itself (not to mention a quite large accumulation of associated email) is being kept.

Which would be nice to know if one were attempting to back up one's mail before changing program versions....

Thunderbird installed a new version and would not open until I created a new profile. Now all my locally saved email is missing. The only profile I can find is the new one for my email account, dated April 2026. Where is the old profile with all my saved emails? I have no email older than April 2026 in my Inbox. POP3 email, saved to my desktop computer, is gone. Please help me find them.

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.)

Hello- I am having a major problem recovering both emails in my inbox, and more specifically all of my local folders. I am using Windows 11, Pop-3 server. My Local Directory keeps reverting to att-1.net and changes I made to my prefs.js file to eliminate the att-1.net folder and revert to an att-net folder containing all the data are not sticking. I've tried using Claude to diagnose and correct, but that hasn't worked. I am not extremely proficient at this, which is probably part of my problem. Any advice would be welcome.

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!

My email was originally set up with Brighthouse which was acquired by Spectrum. My email address has a cfl.rr.com extension. Because of a hard disk problem, I had to reload Thunderbird. Spectrum is still maintaining the old Brighthouse accounts but support is extremely limited.

I can now get into my account in Spectrum's email and can send and receive email there. I had to use a password I set up for Spectrum to do that. But Thunderbird will not recognize my cfl.rr.com account. I can import that account into Outlook and Gmail, but not Thunderbird. It appears to me that Thunderbird is looking for a password that Outlook and Gmail don't require. If I had an old Thunderbird or cfl.rr.com password I have lost it.

I prefer Thunderbird, and I need to get my address book and history files back. I have just set up a new email account in Gmail and imported it into Thunderbird. Is there a way I can I recover my old address book and history files? I do have all the old Thunderbird files that I backed up before I had to reload Thunderbird.

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.

Help please I want to use "Personal Backup" program to save a backup of data needed to restore thenderbird Using tools>help>trouble shooting>application basics>profile>open folder gives 5 files all ending in .default 3 are 1 KB - can these be deleted? 2 have more folders each with many folders and files- are they both needed? which do I use for backing up with "Personal backup" program? the "Personal Backup" program finds 2 possble profiles defaultuser and default_user, which do I need? I am on the "release update channel"

Believe my T-bird account has somehow been corrupted. Takes forever to load on PC and always puts new emails in Trash folder. Often does not accept correct password. If I save / backup PROFILE, uninstall T-Bird and delete any Thunderbird folders on PC, if I restore per backup, will I be restoring the corrupted app. Don't want to loose email addresses, thousands of emails and email folder structure. Will a restore work? Thank you. Greg D

PS Version of T-Bird on laptop still puts all new email in Trash, but loads much more quickly, etc.