Форум сообщества Thunderbird

Suddenly when I open Thunderbird it does not appear. Instead there is something with an octopus icon asking me to set up a new account. I have had an account and have donated for a long time. What is happening? All my folders are gone!

Re: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer

Very clear instructions. May I suggest an optional step, after discovering tens of thousands of WSDEML files that slow the copying of the profile to a crawl.

Yeah search integration can be useful but in my case it probably quadruples the copying time and maybe useless on the new machine.

Hello,

Windows 11 OS / PC

Basically I have Thunderbird installed on my second hard drive. I had several folders of different programs in that drive. I was basically trying to clean up those folders, so I made a folder called programs, and was dragging program files into that folder.

I dragged the whole Thunderbird folder into that new folder. That was where my issue started. After that, the desktop shortcut I had for it wouldn't work. Ok, easy, I went to the Thunderbird folder, found its .exe and voila, made new shortcut.

When I opened that up, it was basically like a new install, asking me to set up username/password pop/smtp etc. I'm decently ok at this, and I know that your Thunderbird profile can just be put in and it will pull everything back up the way it was, only, it's not.

When I looked in the AppData profile area for Thunderbird, it had a profile that was listed at 6:53, 7/22/2025 the exact time I moved the whole folder, and created the new shortcut...

So, my question is, how screwed am I? When I built my PC, I imported the Thunderbird profile over from the old computer to the new one. This was on 12/31/2023. So now, I see no other profiles but from 2023, and from the screwup date, today 7/22/2025.

I should also mention I tried messing with Thunderbird again later this evening, and it made another profile, 10:30 7/22/2025. I knew this wasn't right, and deleted it. So now, when I click on the Thunderbird shortcut, it says profile cannot load Thunderbird, profile is missing / inaccessible. So, Thunderbird won't even load up.

I'm wary of doing a fresh install, as I'm thinking there should be a profile dated between 12/31/2023 and today 7/22/2025, and I don't want a new install to wipe everything if the correct profile is hiding in there somewhere.

If I somehow figure out how to get the main program working again, please tell me the current data from Thunderbird before moving the folder is stored on that original 12/31/2023 profile. I really really really hope the correct and current profile wasn't wiped out when I moved the folder.

Is there a way to do a Windows restore to get it back if it is truly gone? If it is not truly gone, is it still the 12/31/2023 profile (Thunderbird just updates that original profile and keeps the original date that was transferred to the new computer)? If not, how can I find the current one I had before moving the folder? And how can I get Thunderbird to load using that profile?

Thank you for taking time to read this, and if you can help me get my Thunderbird back, you are a God among mortals!

Hi, When the big update happened with Thunderbird 115, I started having a ton of problems, which I posted about on this forum at that time. It seemed too complicated to resolve, so I've just been forcing TB to quit when I get the "Thunderbird is not responding" message. I've done that hundreds of times since November, 2023.

Now I want to use a newer computer and thought I would install the latest version of TB. I wonder if I have corrupted my profile by all the force quits. Should I create a new profile and just start from scratch?

I'm really hoping the current version doesn't have a ton of bugs and that I don't have to spend hours on this project.

Thanks, DD

Hi,

Just upgraded to 140.0.1 and when I restarted Thunderbird it asked that I create a new profile, as if it was the first time I used it. I checked in %APPDATA%/Thunderbird/Profiles, I have 2 folders, one ends with .default (47 b), the other one, ends with .default-release (around 7Gb). I've tried messing a bit with the profiles.ini and the install.ini files but it didn't change anything appart from creating other 47b folders when restarting Thunderbird. So I'm back to the original files but I'm stuck. When I open the about:profiles page, the .default-release one does appear at the top and seems to be the default one, yet nothing shows up in the usual window.

What should I do?

Thanks a lot