I've moved my profiles file and sub files and changed acc settings but emails still go to old location
I want to move my Thunderbird email location to another hard drive on the same pc (Win10). I closed T'bird and copied the profile file (and its sub files) to the new location. In account settings/local directory, I browsed to and selected the new location (i.e. to the end of the complete string) and did the same for the local directory in server settings, so both directory location boxes show the new location.
Any idea what else must I do because a) new emails still automatically get stored in the old location and b) if I delete or alter the original profiles file, Thunderbird will not start up as its looking for the old location. There must be a setting that I have yet to change - any idea?
Your help would be appreciated.
Many thanks,
All Replies (13)
Use the Profile Manager to set Thunderbird to work with the profile in its new location.
Whilst the adjustment you have made ought to work, and I don't understand why it isn't working, that's not the best way of moving your profile.
Fundamentally, you need to change the file profiles.ini to steer Thunderbird to the profile in its new location. Practically, using the Profile Manager is the safest way to do this.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles
Thanks Zenos But Re: Fundamentally, you need to change the file profiles.ini to steer Thunderbird to the profile in its new location. How do I do that? The link you provided had a lot of stuff in it but I didn't see how to change the profiles.ini
Profile Manager does it for you.
So if profile manager 'does it for you' why are my emails still going to the old location and why if I alter the old location file will Thunderbird not work until I reverse the alteration? Clearly, Just moving the profiles file and sub files doesn't enable Thunderbird to open from and store to the new location. Advice please.
Don't move the profiles.ini file. That needs to stay in the default location in AppData....Roaming.
Did you actually try profile manager? The phrasing of your question suggests to me that you are querying this advice.
I haven't moved the profiles.ini file, but having moved the file/sub files under the profiles folder to the new location that I wish to use, I changed the path in the profiles.ini file from Path=Profiles/huveaa5u.default to the new locatiion - which is another hard drive in the same pc and so the new path=G:/A/huveaa5u.default Now Thunderbird will not start at all. Please advise
The profile manager would have correctly used backslashes and would have set IsRelative=0
Why don't you use the profile manager?
I've read all the Mozilla stuff, but I must of missed it - how do I access/use Profile Manager?? as I can't find it anywhere. Is it an .exe file somewhere or what? And why oh why is moving Thunderbird emails to another location so time consuming . . . like 3 days so far!
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles
"Starting the profile manager" tells you about how to invoke it. "Creating a profile" tells you how to create a new logical profile and how to associate it with a specific existing folder location.
Modified by Zenos
BUT profile manager (which I managed to start this time) doesn't give to option of moving a profile, only to set up a new one. Its moving my existing profile to another hard drive on the same pc that I need to do.
"Creating a profile" tells you how to create a new logical profile and how to associate it with a specific existing folder location.
You have already moved your profile. Now you have to tell Thunderbird where to look for it.
You can do it manually by editing profiles.ini. But you need to know to use backslashes in your pathaname, and to change IsRelative to zero (false) becuse the your profile data location is no longer a subfolder of the default location where profiles.ini is found. So you have to give it a full absolute pathname.
Here is my working profiles.ini:
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=Chris IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/cjr_profile Default=1
If I were to move my profile to folder "Profiles" on drive G:, it would need to look like this:
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=Chris IsRelative=0 Path=G:\Profiles\cjr_profile Default=1
Note that I have changed the name of my profile folder to something meaningful that I can relate to. This is useful; if I generate a new profile as part of a test, my real working profile has a distinct name and so I can identify it immediately.
Many thanks for your help and perseverance! At last! I moved my profiles folder and given your example above, I altered my profiles.ini file and all works fine! Such a pity there is so much Mozilla verbiage about moving the 'email' files and folders and addresses data but no examples until your above - thanks again!