Eeeeek!

I used Thunderbird's "Open" command. Drilled down to the .jsonlz4 files, which were greyed out. I used the "all files" option to make them active; clicked Open, and this is the mess that opened as an email. Yikes!

So I know that doesn't work. Tamping down my fear that I've lost all my emails, despite my caution.

How did you export the mail from the archive? If you had just saved the profile folder, probably named ymm1vh1i.default, you could import the mail to a current profile by copying the mbox files, using the method described here:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1329725

On OS X, Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Show in Finder, to open the current profile folder.

Hi, sfhowes! Grateful for your help.

I moved the file into my profile - snapshot attached - but when I opened Thunderbird back up and checked "local folders" - where it's supposed to land - that's an empty folder.

Second picture is what I get when I open the folder.

Your first picture shows 3 profile folders. Which file inside which of those folders did you copy, and where did you copy it? The 2nd picture doesn't lead to anything that will make an mbox file appear in TB.

Hello, sfhowes and all! Please accept my apologies for leaving this hang. Life got the better of me for a while. Now I can give this my attention again.

To catch up: I've reviewed what's been posted here so far, both questions and answers. I'd like, sfhowes, to address your first answer; then to start fresh with where I am now.

Re that linked set of instructions in the first answer: I'm afraid I'm not sure how to apply that. I'm not taking files from IMAP on another client. The files I have were copied off the old Mac.

I have reviewed my steps again and again. I had used, and for the life of me I can't find it again, instructions to locate the Profile folder on the old system (from my Mac before I wiped it), and copy the ymm1vh1i.default file. I've just found that again in my iCloud storage.

The instructions I'm finding now (since I can't find the ones I was following before) tell you to copy the entire Thunderbird folder, then pop it into the Library on the new system, replacing the Thunderbird file that's already in there. Too late for that; I don't have that whole folder.

What I do have is the ymm1vh1i.default file. I've tried putting it inside the Profile folder, no luck. I've tried pasting it various other places, and again, no luck.

It appears to come down now to knowing where that ymm1vh1i.default should be pasted, and I'll be good to go. Does that sound right, and if so - where does it belong?

So many thanks for your patience and time!

Launch TB, Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Show in Finder, close TB. Copy the contents of the current profile folder to a safe location, then delete the contents (not the folder itself). Copy in the contents (not the folder) of ymm1vh1i.default, then restart TB.

I followed that to the letter. When it didn't work, I followed it again. It's not working. Any other ideas?

Would it make any sense to delete the old profile in t-bird, create a new one, and try again?

Shoot. Solved one problem, got another one.

I restarted my computer, opened Thunderbird. The old mail all started repopulating! Yay.

The first problem I noticed was that not all the folders had content. One in particular that I had some 1000 or so messages in is empty.

Then, all the accounts synced with the current status of my active IMAP accounts. All that old email disappeared again!

It's the old emails on Thunderbird I need - all of them, including those (now empty) local folders. I only want to use it as a storage space. I've switched email clients for all my new stuff.

What's my next step?

Still working on this a bit at a time.

I've twice been able to open my old profile with Thunderbird. Only the Inbox populates.

Critical question #1: if I backed up my profile - the ymmv.. folder - is all my email in there somewhere? My sent mail, archived mail, and local folders, as well as the inbox message?

Critical question #2: I can't risk opening Tbird while I'm connected to the internet, as last time I did it deleted everything in the inbox as it synced with my IMAP accounts. If I:

• turn off the internet
• open Tbird
• recover ALL mail from the saved profile folder
• move ALL that mail to a local folder, then
• turn on the internet -

will all my emails be safely stored and protected from a fresh sync?

What a nightmare - exactly what I thought I was sparing myself by carefully creating a backup in the first place. I'm so grateful for your help!

If you move mail to Local Folders, it should be retained when the account reconnects to the server and syncs the latest contents.

I think that answers my first question too - my mail from all my folders is in that ymmv backup? Any idea why they're not showing up when I open Tbird with that file? (As you instructed me, I'm pulling out the guts of the equivalent profile in the newly-downloaded app, and filling that folder with the guts of the backup file.)

Thanks so much for sticking this out with me.

Bump.

Still no success retrieving any of the old local folders from the original backup. Also not entirely sure the backup procedure, as described in the Mozilla help pages, was designed to save them all in the first place. Am I trying to dig something out of there that doesn't exist?