Yonke imikhiqizo Community Forum

Hi folks

When I tried to start up Thunderbird this evening, it has taken me to a set-up page. I seem to have lost all the settings, all my previous (about 3000 !) e-mails in my Inbox.

I obviously don't really want to set it all up again, but it has been working for years without a problem, and then suddenly this happens. I had now a 'warning' message saying that Mozilla Thunderbird wants to make changes to your computer - do you accept? I don't want it to make any changes unless it is to revert back to how it was.

Can anybody help me?

Thanks.

As of yesterday my Thunderbird account vanished, screen asking to set up an account. I am too old to be an IT expert, and I need detailed step by step guidance how to restore that account, full of Inbox emails and folders/subfolders. If it matters (depending on requirements?), my address is @verizon.net - which is pop3 but I have no problem opening the same emails on different devices, as if it were imap (verizon taken over by aol). Pain in the neck, hope to get help.

Three weeks ago I attempted to migrate my TB profiles from a 2014 mini-mac to a 2024 mini-mac. I thought I did a better job of backing up my profile using CCC than I actually did. In the migration to the new Mac I lost all my subfolders from the last 20 years. Apple created a new Profile and 2 restoration Profiles on the new Sequoia based mini-mac. I wasn't familiar with these and panicked. I copied those files, took them back to the original mac and tried to follow Toad-Hall's method of restoring the subfolders recommended to bmack1 on 23/11/22. However, I failed to carry out the step of going up two levels in the path of the Library to copy the entire "Thunderbird" file and only copied the Largest restoration file. This in turn, "contaminated" the 2014 original Thunderbird mail profile and only an Inbox and Trash subfolder remained. Today, after 3 weeks of searching and reading the generous contributions of this community, I came across a post explaining that the "sbd files" will show the subfolder headings I created in the original sought after Profile. And I found it!!! 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. But it's still listed as the "Restoration qqg...file" and probably shouldn't be, but I don't want to go any further and risk losing it because I feel I almost have it. So any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

I'm running Firefox 122.0.1 on a Windows 10 desktop PC, with a profile which includes a userChrome.css file which makes several layout and cosmetic changes.

I also have a laptop (also Windows 10) which has an old Firefox 97.0.1 installation, and I'd like to make the same changes on this machine which I'm used to on the main computer. I copied my desktop profile to the laptop, to the same directory as its present profile, but when I rebooted Firefox the transferred profile wasn't recognised.

While doing the transfer I received error messages about some of the folders: Destination path too long. This despite the fact that the registry flag to accept extended paths is set to 1. I had to skip several folders in order to complete the transfer.

Could this be the reason why the new profile isn't being picked up? Or is it because the two Firefoxes are of different versions?

I'd be grateful for any thoughts. Many thanks.

I hope someone can help here. I have used Tbird and FF almost exclusively from release. Thundebird is my only email program and the whole thing is playing up badly at the moment. I can send no emails. Some emails that show in the inbox show a blank screen and can not be deleted. All messages I send come back with an end of message error and SMTP blocked (see attached). This happened a few weeks ago and my email sourse gave me some new settings using port 587 and it worked ok until a few days ago then exactly the same again. They have checked and everyting works ok for them. I then checked with BitDefender to see if they could assist and everything was as expected so I did a complete computr scan with it and it came back with 3 trojan errors all of which were in Thunderbird. So I decided to do a complete delete and reinstall. No matter what I do or what I deleteincluding shutdown after every delete, when I reinstall it comes back with the total and Faulty Thunderbird So I can't start with a clean sheet. Not that I would like to as I have hundreds of contacts an email saves going back many years. Suggestions anyone

I use Thunderbird 115.18.0 on a Windows 7 machine. I wish to transfer all my Thunderbird data to a machine running Linux Mint 21.3 which has Thunderbird 128.12.0esr. I have not been successful after many tries. Could this be because the Thunderbird revisions are different? If so, can I get 115.18.0 to install on my Mint machine? If not how should I proceed? I have already tried creating a new .thunderbird directory with ********.default directory from the other machine. I have also tried a new .thunderbird directory with a the ********default-release directory as directed by one site.

About a month ago I began the process of upgrading from W10 to W11. In the process, several problems happened. One of the problems was with Firefox. After reading and trying many suggestions from the Mozilla site, as well as several other sites, and having no success, I posted my problem on this Mozilla support site and hope that there was someone who could help. There was. After several days of exchanging messages (suggestions, instructions and results - mostly about Profile), Firefox returned.

The other major problem is Thunderbird. I have downloaded a current version (128.5.2esr). I have run it twice and, each time, email was downloaded. So that part seems to be working. What doesn’t appear are the settings I have used and message folders I have created over several years. I suspect that the problems are Profile related.

Starting from Help in the Thunderbird menu, then Troubleshooting Information, then Application Basics, I see Profile Folder. On that line is a button labeled Open Folder followed by (Local Drive). I click Open Folder and File Explorer opens to a folder named ab3xaztm.default-esr. It shows that the folder contains 59 items, including 10 subfolders. All files and folders show a December date.

Following the path C:\Users\rsuth\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\, in addition to ab3x…, there is another folder nlys3gkl.default that contains only 1 file, times.json.

Because of my earlier struggle – and eventual win – with the Firefox problem, I think that the Thunderbird problem might also be fixed in a similar way: Profile.

Slightly before the upgrading from W10 to W11, I made a copy of my Thunderbird folder. I think if I replace the currently active Thunderbird folder with the one I have saved, my Thunderbird problem may be over. However, I’m not certain that will happen and I’m not certain about the specific steps to take to make the replacement. (With my Firefox issue, there were a couple of small important steps I had to take to make it work, and those steps were explained to me by the person who helped me with my Firefox problem. So, after all these words, can someone point me in the direction to solve my Thunderbird problem?

Thanks for reading.

Opened Thunderbird today April 7, 2025 and the oldest email was from 2:58 PM April 6 2025. All my extensive collection of folders and old email have disappeared. New messages arrive in my inbox just fine. I suspect that there is a folder still on my hard drive somewhere with all the info in it. It appears that Thunderbird just can't find it for some reason. How can I help Thunderbird get back to using that file?

I have followed your instructions at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer and gotten nowhere all day. on it. You have "Profile Folders", a folder called "Profiles", a bunch of profiles (folders) inside the Profiles folder and profiles in Roaming and in Local paths. When I get the old profile 'k41******' copied to the new computer in both the Roaming folder and the Local folder the Thunderbird program still will not show me the old files. I don't need any of the thousands of emails in the old computer, just the Templates in one account. This should be easy. I should just copy the profile k41***** ect. and paste it into the "Profiles" (notice the pleural there) and then Thunderbird should work. But it does not.

Hello Thunderbird Team I am facing a crisis and am praying you can help me. I have been using Thunderbird since 2021. I had setup my account and archives by year containing messages in Folders (Inbox, Sent & Deleted). During a recent laptop migration, I accidentally deleted my profile on my old laptop. I immdeiately recreated it. However now all email stored in my inbox has disappeared. Second, I cannot seem to locate the archives. So I have 2 requests for urgent support: 1. How do I locate the messages in my inbox prior to deleting my profile? 2. How can I recreate the archive with folders? I can see that the profile folder is a massive 22 GB. So the data is there somewhere. Please help me recreate my email profile so I doi not face a business crisis. Thank You Warm regards Milind

I deleted my Thunderbird account and created a new one on the same computer. I used a Profile saved on my external hard drive. The address book info was replicated. The hierarchy of folders and their emails were not replicated in the left hand pane. Is there a way to retrieve those folders with their content? Please, I am not super techno-savvy, so take me step by step. Thank you.

I have two profiles in my Thunderbird account. I want to create desktop shortcut for each profile. That way I can use the shortcut to get my email. On on profile I just want it to go straight to that account without asking for a password. On the other one I want it to ask me for a password. Is that possible and if so how can I do that?

Hi, I'm running FF 149.0 (64-bit) on Windows 11. I've used profiles for a while now and on several occassions I've "lost profiles". Currently I have three profiles which I set up and edited the icon and colour associated with each. When I launch FF I see the Profile Manager and can select any of the three and I can create a new profile which shows here. However, once in any one of the FF profiles I don't see the others - by which I mean that when I go via the hamburger lines top right and click on the current profile, the 'other profiles' section is blank. I also cannot edit the profile from using the edit pencil top right (after clicking the hamburger lines and clicking on the current profile), it takes me to about:editprofile but the page is completely blank. Confusingly, if I go to about:profiles I see two profiles, neither of which shows up in the Profile Manager! I'm going round in circles trying to understand where to edit my exisitng profiles and make sense of the five profiles that don't all show up in the same place!

Oct 23, 2025, 19:35 CST

I FINALLY was able to find the original profile, all messages in the In Box, plus all folders with their contents. 'Lost' when our ISP's ' tech support person ' had me close/remove the TB POP3 account and create an IMAP account).

I need to merge the new small profile (In Box & with basic folders) into - onto the BIG, original, profile. So each time I get/check mail everything goes to, ends up in, the Thunderbird account containing all the OLD data and new working account.

Please remember I am barely TB literate, so start at 1 (A), not 27 (Z)& no tech words. Nor acronyms please.

Thanks! Remain in GOOD health, be WELL, 'n be

• • SAFE!**

Robin

Hello helpful community, Yesterday after first updating my mac ios, I updated Thunderbird (as directed) on my macbook pro and discovered that my local folders are gone. I now have version 128.7.0esr. I have read other conversations here about this problem but they are WAY over my head, and seem to do with PCs. Can you help me restore my local folders with instructions I can hopefully understand? Thank you!

Maybe a red herring: I was in the middle of doing a Documents folder backup when I decided to open Thunderbird for some reason. Got an Unable to Load Profile type of message. And my attempts at a fix seem to just send me further down a rabbit hole. I started out by renaming my profile.ini file, but I really didn't know what the heck I was doing and possibly caused more harm than good. Then I tried to find my profile file/folder itself, using the Thunderbird > Troubleshooting > Profile Folder path and doing an import from inside TBird but that ended up with various problems such as drilling down to the profile folder from within TBird but then when I clicked Select Folder in Thunderbird, that didn't trigger any sort of import.

I also spent a good deal of time trying to find my AppData folder, finally being able to view it (a hidden folder, apparently), and saw several recently-dated profile types of folders, but again, I couldn't manage to "hook up" any of those folder/files from starting inside TBird and selecting Import... I ended up just stuck inside a folder, not triggering any Importing activity.

Finally I found a profile folder (5yed...) at a higher level on my PC than inside that long AppData Roaming Thunderbird path. THIS profile was inside: D:\DOCS\Thunderbird\Profiles

Now THAT folder I managed to get an Import to trigger. But the result was an Error Message telling me to go find my Error Console. Can you please see the attached Error Code display screengrab and tell me there's hope that this was at least the right file but just poor results that I can fix somehow???

The following is my copy/paste of the text I see in the Error Console display that's in my screengrab after trying to import the above 5yed... profile, in case it helps you see it better:

1765349209272 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Also attached below are also:

• a screengrab of a set of profiles I found, but when I drilled down to them from within TBird's Import selections and clicked Select Folder, as far as I got was an open folder, or something like that.
• Thunderbird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.
• Message telling me to see the Error Console. The message appeared right after I tried importing the profile that's stated in TBird's Troubleshooting Info "Profile Folder" path.

Here's the copy/paste of the Error Console message display after my try at importing the profile that is in the path that TBird's Troubleshooting Info page "Profile Folder" states (maybe it's the same as my 5yed...profile import try's Error Console display, dunno:

1765353636640 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons Content-Security-Policy: This site (https://www.mozilla.org) has a Report-Only policy without a report-uri directive nor a report-to directive. CSP will not block and cannot report violations of this policy. thunderbird WebGL context was lost. 2 Troubleshoot.sys.mjs:727:17 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 441 459 695) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:700 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-bold.woff2 downloadable font: Glyph bbox was incorrect (glyph ids 459) (font-family: "Open Sans" style:normal weight:400 stretch:100 src index:0) source: https://updates.thunderbird.net/media/fonts/opensans-regular.woff2 Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo]

   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652
   _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:661
   _mergeLocalFolders resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:634
   _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:243

ThunderbirdProfileImporter.sys.mjs:652

Thanks for any help in getting through this.

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). When I copy it, near the end of the copy process I get this strange message: "Replace the file 'Inbox.msf"? An older file with the same name already exists in 'mail.cyberacc.net'.

Original file: 143.3 kB. Last modified 2014-08-22 12:57:00 Replace with 122.2 kB. Last modified 2014-08-23 23:08:25

Curiously, no accounts from mail.cyberacc.net show up in my accounts sidebar. Under 'Account Management' it shows as 'XMPP - nn@cyberacc.net'

How can two files with the same name but different dates exist in the profile? What should I do in response to this prompt? Cancel? Skip? Replace?

Thanks

Copying from Lenovo x120e running Fedora 24 and Thunderbird 52.2.1 (64bit) Want to add to Thunderbird 128.13.0esr (64-bit) on Dell XPS 9315 running Fedora 42 Workstation Edition

I'm trying to transfer the Profile folder from my current laptop to my new one. I followed the directions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer but must've made a mistake because none of my many Local folders have populated Thunderbird in the new laptop. Also, the GB size, number of files and number of folders show to be very different on the new laptop vs. the current one.

I'm inclined to just start over but have a question. Can I simply delete the contents of the "Thunderbird" folder under "Roaming" in my new laptop and try again to paste into it? Or are there some items in that folder that were inserted when I first downloaded TB into my new laptop so that doing a complete deletion would remove those and they wouldn't be replaced when I try pasting again? If so, how do I get around that?

Thanks very much for your help.