Yonke imikhiqizo Community Forum

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.

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 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.

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

I tried to start Thunderbird and it would not open. There was a message that read, "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." After trying to fix it and nothing worked, I uninstalled and reinstalled Thunderbird. Now all of my contacts and data is gone. When I tried to use the import tool I selected import from another Thunderbird installation and I can't get past the continue button.

How do I recover all of my data and contacts/addresses?

Believe my T-bird account has somehow been corrupted. Takes forever to load on PC and always puts new emails in Trash folder. Often does not accept correct password. If I save / backup PROFILE, uninstall T-Bird and delete any Thunderbird folders on PC, if I restore per backup, will I be restoring the corrupted app. Don't want to loose email addresses, thousands of emails and email folder structure. Will a restore work? Thank you. Greg D

PS Version of T-Bird on laptop still puts all new email in Trash, but loads much more quickly, etc.

Thunderbird switched automatic to Freedom. No possibility to avoid. All connections where lost. After input connection data mail where downloaded. But over 2000 old local stored mail are gone.

How to restore all old local mails, structure and archives?

Got up this morning and stared up Thunderbird as I always do but got a 'new account dialog'. All of my emails, folders, settings, etc. are gone. Went through the Help - Trouble shooting process to find the old profile. There are three profiles listed in 'About Profiles' and if I launch with any of them, all I get is a new setup. Freaking out here as I have 10 of thousands of emails, in multiple email accounts, in a relatively complex folder structure which includes online and local folder storage. I have a feeling that Thunderbird updated last night and is the cause of this problem.

Running Windows 10 Pro v 22H2, build 19045.6332 . Thunderbird 140.3.1esr (64-bit)

Hello. I recently upgraded from my older MacBook Pro (now factory reset and sold) to a new MacBook Air. I use Thunderbird as my email client and I have many folders that live within my Local Folders. When I transferred all the data from the older Mac to the new Mac via iCloud, and set up my new mail account (IMAP), the folders did not download into the program. I've tried using Subscribe but none of my pre-existing folders show up. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I have problems migrating my Windows 10 Thunderbird profile to a new computer running Linux.

On the new computer, I want to put the profile into a custom folder, not the standard folder (which would be /home/torben/.var/app/net.thunderbird.Thunderbird/.thunderbird in my case)

Here's what I did:

I installed Thunderbird 128.13.0esr under Fedora Linux 42 using flatpak.

Upon first startup, I aborted the mail account setup process

Opened Help/Troubleshooting information ... about:profiles

Create new profile ... Choose folder (I am translating everything from my German language version)

--> That's where an error message occurs: "/home/torben/.thunderbird not found ..." (interestingly, this folder simply does not exist (yes, I know how to view hidden files) although about:profiles also says that the "root folder" of the two already existing profiles default and default-esr is inside /home/torben/.thunderbird !?)

Nevertheless, in the profile assistant I can choose the folder (/home/torben/Dokumente/Gemeinsam/Documents/Briefe/Thunderbird_Profiles/tj63nudj.default) containing my migrated profile

The profile assistant tells me that my personal settings and data will be saved in /run/user/1000/doc/e9915464/tj63nudj.default (?)

After finishing the profile assistant, I can see the newly created profile in about:profiles, but it says "This profile is currently used by another application and therefore cannot be deleted" (what other application?)

I click "normal re-start" in the upper right corner of the about:profiles tab

After restarting, I open the about:profiles tab again. Now I can click on "run profile" under my newly created profile and Thunderbird opens a new window where everything works fine: All the migrated mails are there, I can log into my usual imap accounts etc.

I can close both windows, restart Thunderbird again and again and everything stays fine

BUT after some time (about 10 minutes) Thunderbird won't (re)start anymore and displays this error:

"Thunderbird is already running, but is not responding. To use Thunderbird, you must first close the existing Thunderbird process, restart your device, or use a different profile."

The error persists after rebooting.

This error seems to be related to that whole manual migration process, because when I simply follow that mail account setup assistant after a clean re-install of Thunderbird, I can keep using the program without any issues (although the /home/torben/.thunderbird folder isn't created either) ...

Would be very grateful if someone had an idea how to solve this problem ... Thanks in advance!

Hi,

When I opened Firefox today, it asked me which profile I'd like to use. I named one Katy and then continued. Now, I can't see any of my bookmarks, none of my passwords are saved, none of my sites recognized. I've been using Firefox for years. Everything I have is saved there. I just want my old stuff back. I'm signed in on my account, but can't see another profile that I can choose. My phone still has all the passwords and bookmarks from before but I I can't see what profile I'm signed in under. Can anyone help?

Thank you!

Katy

Bonjour, J'ai essayé à plusieurs reprises d'installer Thunderbird (a chaque fois 1 don est requis) mais à chaque fois le même message s'affiche : "Le profil Thunderbird ne peut être chargé. Il est peut-être manquant ou inaccessible". Une première fois l'installation avait fonctionné mas j'ai essayé de modifier le profil afin qu'ils puissent reprendre le carnet existant sur mon ancien ordinateur. Aujourd'hui je suis bloqué. Avez vous 1 solution à me proposer ? Merci

Hi I had a systems crash and did a windows 10 reinstall. Windows created a folder windows.old. In the folder is users/"username"/appdata/local and roaming/thunderbird/profiles/ In the profiles folder for example I have a profile 34eu8280.2020. I transfered this folder to the newly installed thunderbird folder under roaming/thunderbird/profiles/ Next windows+r entered thunderbird-p. Create profile, entered 2020 as profile name, chose folder, entered 34u8280.2020, select folder, finish. In profile manager selected 2020, work offline, unchecked use selected profile without asking at startup, start thunderbird. Profile not showing up only account setup page.

At a lost as to how to proceed.

Any help would be appreciated in restoring profiles

Stan

I got a warning that I am running out of disk space, on checking I found the Thunderbird_profile_backup.zip is currently 297Gb. I must do something about this, can I delete it, or is there another way to reduce this rediculous size?

I am running the latest version 140.3.0esr (64bit) I have two IMAP accounts, and I do download some mail into local folders, but nothing near this sort of quantity. Any help or suggestions would be most welcome.

Hello, i have installed latest TB an try to use it on one PC - This PC is part of company network, users login to windows by domain controller login. there is also a exchange server in the same network. i have created a running and working thunderbird-exchange connection for 2 different users but with the third user its noch working anymore. is there a limit to user accounts on one PC or? Thank you all kind regards andi

My windows 10 PC died. I copied the the profiles folder from the old appdata/roaming/Thunderbird to the new Win11 PC, but TB does not pick it up, asking to create a new account "John Doe". Any ideas? Best, K.

If I'm not mistaken, between FF146 and FF147 it appears the location of the profile directory has changed. It was:

   /home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox  

and now is

   /home/<user>/.config/mozilla/firefox

Is that correct?

I backed up Thunderbird and reloaded it after I had been hacked in gmail, but now I have 2 profiles accessing the same gmail. One shows the gmail address and the other is my old "local" profile. The old one has my typical 16000 emails, while the new one shows 30,000 emails with no doubles. Can I delete the new one?