How to repllace a thunderbird profile on linux with a thunderbird profile on window

Try this:

1. click help>troubleshootinginformation
2. click to 'profiles' and click 'about:profiles'
3. in upper left is 'create profile' button click it
4. click next
5. on this screen, enter shortname, e.g., Dprofile
6. , second, click the browse button at bottom and locate and select the profile on drive D
7. click finish and launch and see if that works .

many thanks David for that, Unhappily for something I did (installing a new thunderbird) I did manage to find with tb -p the profile and substituted my Win10 TB profile. This resulted in "unable to find Porfile or unacceptable profile error message - hence no help list. Trued to delete TB but command line said TB not installed but I am able on Place>internet 2 Thunderbirds on list but neither of them lead to TB opening. One had a red print list in a box ending with an http// address which can't be copied, The other give the profile not found or unacceptable.

I am grateful for your suggestion D Watson

Hi David,

Having accumulated emails from way back there are a number I wish to keep. Moving to Linux Mint on a new PC I wished to move my old TB profile to the new PC. I opened a thunderbird mail account of one my email accounts which worked fine and received new emails. TB profile on windows is a static name. I was expecting to find that on Linux but failed, because I used my name as the profile name. I also failed to find a method of installing my TB profile from windows in Linux TB. I assume the TB -p is not tb's true profile but my name for it.

If I could locate the true location of tb linux profile file and its true name I could change my windows tb file name to the linux tb profile name and believe I would have all those saved emails displayed on Linux?

Doug

Thanks David that did resolve the issue and I am now able to see old emails on Linux.

What I hadn't appreciated was that each email account needed setting up on the new TB Linux to access the old profile.

hanks again.

Doug

On review I discovered hundreds of emails missing. There appears to be some sort of fundamental non compliance between linux TB and win10 TB. The only emails one can see on moving installing TB on linux are the emails still on the webmail NOT the emails on the Win10 profile. It baffels me why the same software refuses to recognise itself on different operating systems. I thought TB was external to Windows and Linux

TB versions linux 142.12 - window version 152 but there does not seem to be a method of changing either to make them the same version. I get notifications, such as TB version update has made changes to the newer version,

dwatson1

You are correct: the TB data is compatible with both Linux and Windows. Lacking details, it is difficult to advise next steps. Copying profile from PC to linux uses the OS file manager, copying every character. If you have the PC profile on the media you copied from, you should see all of the message folders intact. I have never encountered that, copying from/to Linux, so I encourage that you revisit the exported profile, as whatever was not copied can still be salvaged. If yu post screenshot of what was not copied, I think we can assist in resolving that.

david - I am most grateful for your answer. I would love to be able to send you a screenshot of what isn't copied BUT the issue is that only the emails residing on the webmail server are present after trying to move win10 profile to Linux Mint- none of the emails that were on TB Win10 make it to Linux Mint.

My suspicion is that there exist, in the win10 TB profile (there are around 25 files), one or maybe more files prevent Linux TB from seeing them, using them or transferring them to Linux - my view, some sort of instruction to gather the emails from the webmail only and not the win10 profile. From the size of the profile (7.5 gb, I believe all the emails are on the external drive (although it is impossible to know). I am equally sure that there is some sort of block, either by a single file instruction or a refusal to recognise or even a file instruction to pick up the emails from the web server not the external hard drive. Example there is a file called 'saved telemetry-pings', 'handlers,jason', 'bounce-tracking-protection' and 'AlternateServices.bin'. If I knew which ones were unimportant I could try not transferring those files or not including those on the win10 profile.

Lastly - like some email copying, and resending, the content received the other end as email is full of digits,letters and characters that make no sense to be able to read.

dewatson1