My problem is I have re-read Toad-Hall's method of re-installing the original Profile and tried to carry that out to the letter by placing the old Profile within a Thunderbird folder and switching it with the current one.

I don't think that Toad-Hall promotes the method you just described to migrate a Thunderbird profile to another computer. You cannot switch a profile folder with another profile folder since they have different names and the profiles.ini file tells Thunderbird which profile it must open and where the profile folder is located.

Please open the user-library of your Mac, go to the folder Thunderbird and open it. Within you should see a folder Profiles and a file profiles.ini : show screen shots with the contents of the Profiles folder and the profiles.ini file

Thank you for the quick response Mapenzi, Perhaps I should have been more explicit in citing Toad-Hall's recommended method. I was attempting to keep it concise. [[Migrating Thunderbird from one Mac to a new Mac|https://support.mozilla.org/gl/questions/1397228]] As I noted in my initial post, I made the error of not copying the entire "Thunderbird" file in the Library folder. This 'qqg8c078 Restoration Profile' is the rescued file that I want to make the default. I just want to make sure I do it without any further errors both here and on the new mini-mac. (Again, I returned to my old mini-mac because I haven't completely grasped the intent of the "Restoration" piece assigned by Apple. It may well be irrelevant, but this has been a lot of legwork and didn't want to mess it up in the end. Thanks again for your help. The screen shot of the 3 profiles are attached.

Thank you for the contents of "Profiles". I assume that the "Restoration Folder" is the the profile folder from your old Mac. Unfortunately you don't show the contents of the profiles.ini file. You should find it in the same Thunderbird folder which contains the "Profiles" folder. Please open it with TextEdit und show its contents.

Did you install the same or a newer Thunderbird version as on your old Mac?

Hello Mapenzi, Realized late last night I had forgotten to send the profiles.ini file. Sorry. I've included it here. Yes, that qqg8c078.Restoration is the from the old Mac. I took another screenshot of the entire profiles folder, simply to give a better "overall" view of the different Profiles existing. (The very last,incomplete, slightly grayed out profile is simply as one I attempted to install that was paused by a DS_Store conflict). Thanks again. Jack

[Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/75rfawth.default Default=1

[Profile0] Name=default-esr IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/jsuffiry.default-esr

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2

[Install712DAF5A23ABECDC] Default=Profiles/jsuffiry.default-esr Locked=1

I took a closer look on the contents of your qqg8c078.Restoration profile folder and this gave me very mixed sensations. I don't know which version you have been using lately on your old Mac Mini. Most of the files in this profile have modification dates from 2012, which means thirteen years ago. Since 2012 many of those files should have migrated to a new format, some files have been abandoned or been replaced by others, e:g localstore.rdf by xulstore.json

If you started an actual Thunderbird version in this profile maybe you would see your accounts and messages, but you'd have no address books, your passwords would be lost, TB would ask them again and again without being able to save them since it can't migrate signons3.txt to logins.json, neither migrate all .mab files to the new .sqlite format. I have seen those problems in the German forum when user wanted to pass directly from TB 38 or 45 to TB 115 without creating a new profile. I wonder why your old profile from 2012 didn't evolve during all those years. Did you never update to new Thunderbird versions?

There is another glitch in your qqg8c078.Restoration profile folder with the modified date from 11/21/25: it contains a second qqg8c078.Restoration profile folder with a modified date from 2/11/24. My questions: Which TB version did you use on your old Mac mini when you switched to the new one? Do you have a more recent backup of your profile?

Mapenzi, you're probably ahead of me on this matter, and I don't want to interfere. Just a thought: if Jack created a new profile on his new Mac, he should be able to transfer several gigabytes of mail to the new profile. One challenge would be finding all the mail in ImapMail, Mail, and the embedded restoration profile. Of course, looking for a more recent back-up first would be good.

Jack, how important are your address books, calendars, and passwords from old profiles?

Rick, I'm fully aware of this unusual situation and won't insist on using the old profile. If there is no recent profile backup available my choice would be a new profile, set up all accounts, manual import of mbox files from the old POP account folders and import of abook.mab file.

Rick, I'm aware of this unusual situation. If there is no recent profile backup available my choice would be a new profile, set up all accounts, manual import of mbox files from the old POP account folders and import of abook.mab file.

My thoughts too.

Hello Mepenzi, Thank you again for sticking with this. I'll try and make sure I answer each question. You are right that there is a 2012 Profile that was a significant save. I had archived a lot of my work files into local folders in TB that I didn't access much. I had a hackintosh prior to going back to a mini-mac and I remember temporarily struggling with a TB update just prior to reorganizing all those files. I am running the most current version of TB on both machines 140.05esr. The profile with the 2012 local files was the first I found so I was mildly relieved I hadn't lost 'everything'. When rounded up all of the Profiles I had (both old and the ones I created in my panic of losing my data) I went through each by the sbd files. The one I posted to show you was the one that had very recent folders that I had created in the Inbox. (all of which had disappeared during the migration). I think what you're telling me is that that Profile, while it may have those folders listed, is still not 'complete', giving TB the direction it needs to load the profile and operate as it had before I attempted any of this. I do indeed get asked for my passwords repeatedly. I stupidly bought a 2024 mini with only 256 working memory and added an 8G stick (never again) so I ended up botching my use of CCC to make a backup startup disc if things went sour. Mapenzi, I did update TB each time I was notified (I'm a lot better at that than I am using my TimeMachine). Your question makes me think I haven't found the most current Profile yet. It was the largest with 12+G and it had those recent folders so I assumed I had it. I can dig again. Rick had asked if I needed the passwords, addresses, and calendars. The first 2 are easily replaceable. The calendars may be more important.

Hello Rick, Thank you very much for responding. I don't need the addresses or passwords. They are easily replaced. The calendars I remember working really hard to keep updated while using a Mac and working in a Windows environment, so there is some info. I'd be reluctant to lose. However, the folders that I had everything from the past 13 years organized within the Inbox are certainly the most critical pieces for me. The one aspect of this retrieval that I'm most concerned about at this point is choosing the wrong profile to work with as I attempt whatever strategy to return to the original state. As I look at that Inbox that had my 2025 Mail.sbd the items are listed as .mozeml files. Is that the original message in its entirety or simply an index meant to point TB to the original message (meaning it's incomplete)?

The one aspect of this retrieval that I'm most concerned about at this point is choosing the wrong profile to work with as I attempt whatever strategy to return to the original state. As I look at that Inbox that had my 2025 Mail.sbd the items are listed as .mozeml files. Is that the original message in its entirety or simply an index meant to point TB to the original message (meaning it's incomplete)?

The mozeml files are not the message files. I believe that they are used to enable Spotlight on macOS to search mail. Messages are stored in the files that don't have an extension but have a companion file with the same name and an .msf extension.

I should have made the purpose of my last message clearer. My point was that, even if none of your profiles is usable on its own, messages in them can probably be salvaged using the process that Mapenzi sketched above. You could move them to a new profile.

When I first looked at your screen images, I thought that you had gigabytes of such messages. As I look more closely, I see that there's not enough information to tell. You may want to drill down through your ImapMail folders and Mail folders (including Local Folders) in all your profiles, identify the pairs of files that include one with no extension and one with an .msf extension, and see how large the former ones are. The more and larger the files without extensions, the more messages you should be able to salvage.

And then wait for guidance from Mapenzi. I'm trying to be helpful but afraid of complicating things.

Thanks Rick, I appreciate and very much understand the need to take a planned approach to solving this. For the last couple of hours I reexamined every TB profile I had looking for the sbd files in the Mail and and IMap folders. In glancing at the largest profile, the one I posted that was 10G+ there were a lot of the mozemi files but most of the corresponding (non-extension msf extension was only a few kilobytes. But I'll go back more thoroughly. The problem on my end is I'm just not familiar with the purpose of each of the components of the Profile so the more I know what to look for the better my odds of finding what I need (at least that's my assumption). Prior to the direction from Mapenzi and you it was more like trying to snag a map in a tornado. So once again, thank you both. Jack

Hello Jack, we are at a dead end with this old profile shown in your screen shot since it makes no sense to create a new profile and import data from 2012! So let's do simple things first: if you still can launch your old Mac mini, open the Thunderbird folder in your user library and take a screen shot of the contents of the "Profiles" folder? BTW: are you still able to run Thunderbird on the old Mac?

Hello Mapenzi, I am able to run Thunderbird on my old mac but I get the initial setup screen at this point. I've attached 3 pics of the profile. Overkill, I know but I wanted to give you as complete a picture as possible. I also sent a fourth pic which is simply a different view of that initial profile I posted. That layout of the 2025 Mail.sbd is the most current layout of what I had set up in my primary mailbox. I understand it may not have the essential data but I can't find any profile that looks "newer" to me. The second pic of the present profile is also similar. And again, I can't thank you enough for your continued help. Jack

Hello Mapenzi, I am able to run Thunderbird on my old mac but I get the initial setup screen at this point. I've attached 3 pics of the profile.

Are these new pictures from the Thunderbird profile folder on the old Mac mini? I can't believe it since such a profile would never have run! On your old Mac did you open ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/ ... and this is what you see?

As for your pictures:

picture 1 on the left: shows the contents of profile jsuffiry.default-esr which is the profile created when you first started TB 140-esr on the new Mac. It only contains some messages (IMAP) and no old messages

picture 2 shows parts of the "Restoration Profile", mainly contents of a big 1.87 GB Inbox.sbd folder, polluted by numerous mozmsgs folders which had been created - as Rick already pointed - by the macOS Spotlight search. But there also are some .sbd folders with recent modification dates. A folder like Mail.sbd would never be created, this is an artefact because a folder Mail has been copied into another folder hierarchy. Nevertheless these message folders could be reused in a new profile.

picture 3 : shows nothing new. But as I had remarked earlier it contains a second "Restoration folder" with a size of 2.2 GB, created in 2012 and modified in 2024. I have marked it with a red frame for your attention... Please show a new screen shot with its content!

picture 4 : shows "Restoration folder" > Mail with a big Inbox.sbd folder I already mentioned in picture 2

Hello Mapenzi, Yes, those first 3 images are the profiles I saw on the old mac when I opened TB/Help/.../Profile Folder:Show in Finder. It only opens to the account setup page with none of my data listed at all. Even the TB on the new mini has the 2012 data fairly intact. Because of the limited space on the new mac I used an external SSD card of 500G to transfer my data. When the migration failed and Thunderbird lost all the data, I started reading the support blog to see how to fix it (prior to asking for help). That's why I referenced Toad-Hall's article because I think I messed something up when I transitioned back to the old TB. So that could very well be why those profiles look wonky. I attempted to switch the Profile back with Thunderbird closed when I returned to the old mac mini. I've attached 2 pages of that other profile you asked for. Just a note: You'll see a grayed out partial copy of the profile on the bottom of page 2. That I believe is due to an error in copying folders I've been getting stating that a DS_Store file already exists (it's not a permission issue). I've been getting them recently on the old mac when copying folders and it may be a minor interference somewhere. I took another look through the new mac to see if there was a newer profile in my User file but no luck. Thanks, Jack

The duplicate of the Restoration Profile doesn't contain anything more then the original, it's only old stuff. In the second picture on the right I see a completely new virgin (one more!) profile xxxxxxxxx. default-esr-1. You must have created it by recently starting TB on your new Mac.

Conclusion: this is a complete mess and there is no other way than to build a new profile and try to integrate some old message files from the Restoration Profile. Probably there will also be some data loss because of absence of exploitable profile backups.

This will be very time consuming, require much more screen shots, many messages to be exchanged and provoke exhaustion. There is also the time difference between Europe and US as a handicap which slows down information flow. In my German "home" forum I would say Stop here! and propose to restore a viable profile via remote control to save time and ressources. No asking for this or that screen shot, in very little time one has an overview of the whole situation.

But let us still try the classic strenuous way once again: How many accounts did you create and use lately on your old Mac? Did you use the POP or the IMAP protocol? Did you set up any of those accounts on your new Mac?

Mapenzi, I agree wholeheartedly. It is indeed a complete mess and in my panic of losing so much data, I have made the tracking the history of my attempts at retrieval impossible to sort through. And I also concur it is not feasible to attempt it under these circumstances, solely because I'm just feeding you fragments of the whole picture. And on your end your patiently trying to assemble it piece by piece. I truly appreciate everything you've done and I admire your willingness to continue, but I think you're right: I think I'm going to have to hand this to someone and show them the chaos I've created, and pay them, and hopefully work with them to recover what I am able to. You'd think after 40 years of using a Mac and 20 years of using Thunderbird I'd have mastered the simple art of backing up and migrating to a new machine. Perhaps in another 10 I'll have it down. Thank you once again for all your hard work! Sincerely, Jack M.

Jack,

before I definitively throw in the towel please answer the three questions from my last message:

How many accounts did you create and use lately on your old Mac?
Did you use the POP or the IMAP protocol?
Did you set up any of those accounts on your new Mac?

If you mainly used IMAP accounts the account setup and message recovery will be simple. This would leave the Local Folders to be recovered after purging all this mozmsgs litter.....

I would create a new profile on your new Mac. Then I would find all the mail folders with messages in all the old profiles and copy them into “Local Folders” of the new profile in the Finder.

The evidence suggests that there are not many mail folders with messages and that they do not contain many messages.

But this approach should salvage whatever can be salvaged.