the name, mail.cyberacc.net, is the name of a server, not the account. If you peruse the profile, you may see that. The msf file is only an index that thunderbird rebuilds when missing. Finally, you appear to be copying a profile onto another profile. Unless you know exactly why you're doing that, you can easily mess up a lot of data. I suggest you pause and rethink why you're doing this. (I also suggest you create screenshots that are rightside-up.) thank you.

People here can help more if you say more about what you are trying to accomplish. Why are you copying an old profile over a new one? As David said, many things can go wrong. You may want to state your objectives and ask people here what the best way is to achieve them.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I don't understand why you say, "Finally, you appear to be copying a profile onto another profile. Unless you know exactly why you're doing that, you can easily mess up a lot of data. "

I'm just trying to copy the profile to a thumb drive. Then I will copy it to my new computer and add it to my profile.ini file. It's my understanding that I can have multiple profiles in Thunderbird and can switch to the old one if I need to.

I'm sorry about the screen shot. It opens right-side-up on my computer, so I don't understand how it got rotated 180 when I uploaded it.

PS: My current default profile (on the new machine) appears in three places. Are two of them 'mirrors'? Which location is primary? == "Profile: Default User /home/eric/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/.thunderbird/z663dkmf.default-release Profile: default Root Directory /home/eric/.thunderbird/z663dkmf.default-release Local Directory /home/eric/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/cache/thunderbird/z663dkmf.default-release"

PPS: Contrary to what About:profiles suggests, there isn't a /home/eric/.thunderbird directory on my computer.

I understand now what you are trying to do. David's observation is still correct, though. You are copying a file or files including an inbox file over a file or files that already have an inbox file. That looks like one profile going over another.

What exactly are you copying? Apparently not the whole profile. If you were copying the whole profile and that profile already existed in the destination location on your thumb drive, you would be asked if you wanted to replace the profile, not an inbox file. Right? Unless Fedora does something that I'm not familiar with.

How can two files with the same name but different dates exist in the profile?

They cannot. That is why you received the message in your screenshot. Or am I misunderstanding something?

The profile is in the root directory.

What should I do in response to this prompt? Cancel? Skip? Replace?

Unless I've misunderstood something, you want to cancel that copy and make sure that you are copying the whole profile in one step, the /home/eric/.thunderbird/z663dkmf.default-release directory, to your thumb drive.

Edit: sorry, this profile is on your new computer, not your old one. General instructions still apply.

"I'm trying to copy an older Thunderbird profile so i can add it to my Thunderbird installation on a new computer (where I already have a profile and a bunch of mail)." "I'm just trying to copy the profile to a thumb drive." "My current default profile (on the new machine) appears in three places"

On my old computer I go to /home/eric/.thunderbird and right click on wceg7jd5.default, and copy it to an empty directory on my usb thumb drive. (There is just one profile on the old computer.) This action results in the strange warning about the "older file with the same name."

In my original post, I did not say anything about copying one profile on top of another. I said, "add it to my Thunderbird installaton on a new computer."

Nothing from mail.cyberacc.net appears in the sidebar on the old computer that lists my various accounts. When I look at Account Settings, it appear as "XMPP - nn@cyberacc.com"

Could that account somehow have its own Inbox and that's why the copy-process thinks an Inbox already exists? Cyberacc is a company I was working for ten years ago. I don't remember anything about this account. Maybe I should just delete that account and see what happens.

I search in the profile file. There is mail (and Inboxes) under IMAP mail in the profile. (All my other mail is POP, because I like to have it all on my computer.)

There are multiple Inboxes. Inboxes appear under: ImapMail: five different accounts here have an Inbox, including my main mail provider, where all my mail is Pop. Mail: 14 different accounts have Inboxes.

As David said, "The msf file is only an index that thunderbird rebuilds when missing." So maybe I can ignore the whole issue?

In my original post, I did not say anything about copying one profile on top of another. I said, "add it to my Thunderbird installaton on a new computer."

Understood, no need to repeat yourself. But the logical explanation for the message that you received is that you were trying to copy an inbox (from a profile) over another inbox (from a profile). If you did what you say you did, I have no other explanation.

Nothing from mail.cyberacc.net appears in the sidebar on the old computer that lists my various accounts. When I look at Account Settings, it appear as "XMPP - nn@cyberacc.com"

That does not indicate a problem. As David said: "The name, mail.cyberacc.net, is the name of a server, not the account." Accounts can be named whatever you want to call them. You could change the name of that account to be the name of the server, if you want to.

Could that account somehow have its own Inbox and that's why the copy-process thinks an Inbox already exists?

Yes. Scroll through your profile and you will probably see a folder called "mail.cyberacc.net" and it has an inbox in it.

I search in the profile file. There is mail (and Inboxes) under IMAP mail in the profile. (All my other mail is POP, because I like to have it all on my computer.) There are multiple Inboxes. Inboxes appear under: ImapMail: five different accounts here have an Inbox, including my main mail provider, where all my mail is Pop. Mail: 14 different accounts have Inboxes. As David said, "The msf file is only an index that thunderbird rebuilds when missing." So maybe I can ignore the whole issue?

What do you consider an issue here? Every account should have its own inbox. Your objective is to move your profile with all those accounts and all those inboxes to your new computer, right?

Under ImapMail/mail.cyberacc.net there are, in fact, two files:

    inbox.msf  23 August 2014 122.2kB
    Inbox.msf  22 August 2014  142.3kB

This explains why I get the warning about an existing Inbox.msf file. It doesn't explain why there are two of them in the existing profile. So I'll delete both on my copy and trust that Thunderbird will replace when necessary, as David suggested.

Thanks for the suggestions and efforts to understand what I was doing. (It's good to know that I can open these profile files and see what's in them.)

[Interesting: Linux, being case sensitive, sees them as two files. The copy program saw them as duplicates.]

Under ImapMail/mail.cyberacc.net there are, in fact, two files: inbox.msf 23 August 2014 122.2kB Inbox.msf 22 August 2014 142.3kB This explains why I get the warning about an existing Inbox.msf file. It doesn't explain why there are two of them in the existing profile. So I'll delete both on my copy and trust that Thunderbird will replace when necessary, as David suggested.

I do not know how that is possible, though I have seen it lately in macOS too. In any case, yes, those are index files that Thunderbird recreates as needed, so safe to delete.

Good luck with the rest of the operation. Come back if you want more help.

I finally figurd out the answer, marked my answer as "Solved the problem," and posted it, before Rick's last post. For some reason, my post has disappeared.

I cleared all the posts marked as SPAM, but I don't see anything marked as solved.

I tried to modify my solution answer and keep getting "An error occurred." Here's what I wrote, with the last line comment about case sensitivity added.

Under ImapMail/mail.cyberacc.net there are, in fact, two files:

    inbox.msf  23 August 2014 122.2kB
    Inbox.msf  22 August 2014  142.3kB

This explains why I get the warning about an existing Inbox.msf file. It doesn't explain why there are two of them in the existing profile. So I'll delete both on my copy and trust that Thunderbird will replace when necessary, as David suggested.

Thanks for the suggestions and efforts to understand what I was doing. (It's good to know that I can open these profile files and see what's in them.)

[Interesting. Linux, being case sensitive, saw them as two files. The copy program saw them as duplicates.]

"Unless Fedora does something that I'm not familiar with."

Sorry ... I did not know that Linux was case-sensitive. I never would have guessed that the problem lay in the source of the copy and not the destination.