How do I import a TB profile from an ext. drive into a reset Win 10 desktop?
Because of a virus, I had to use a restoration point for my Windows 10 desktop, which deleted my TB program. I have imported my TB folder from an external drive, but now the newly download TB program does not recognize it when I open TB. I hope that the TB data transferred from the extra drive has my settings for TB in it. Does it? I don't see any way to import the transferred folder. How do I do that? I have tried right-clicking on the transferred folder, which is in the roaming folder, but it does not allow me to open in TB. The only choice is "open." which does not work. I still have the original folder, which opened when I first tried to install TB, but that led me into a problem with the address it wanted me to use--gandi.net, which TB says is not appropriate to use. If I choose "Skip this," I am led to the Mail Account Setup, but it cannot find anything when searching for "mail.mediacombb.net". This should be easy to do, but it isn't.
All Replies (3)
what "transferred folder" Thunderbirds profile is a collection of many files and a number of sub folders. So what exactly have you got on your external drive? Or perhaps a better way of asking might be how did you get it there? and does it contain sub folders. Lots of reports here about "backups" folk have created on Windows 10 with drag and drop that only contain the root folder and none of the sub folders.
I have a WD drive that automatically backs up my computer. I used the WD software to move the Thunderbird folder from the WD to my computer (Win 10). I put it in the same ROAMING folder that the old TB folder is still in. The odd thing is that the first time I downloaded the TB setup software, It immediately found the old TB folder in the ROAMING folder, but it tried to force me to use a different address which TB said was not safe to use. The new folder should get recognized as I gave the old folder a new name and gave the new folder the name of Thunderbird. Once I did that, a newly downloaded TB setup was unable to "see" or connect with TB itself. That is, whenI downloaded the new TB program, it did not recognize the folder, but a previous download of the same version did recognize the old folder, when, then, was called THUNDERBIRD--just as the new one is now. As to what is in the TB folder retrieved from my WD drive, it contains exactly what I'd expect--all of the various emails I've sent and received--exactly the same as what is in the old TB folder.
Modified by Lohrville
ok I think we have a number of issues here.
1. The appdata\roaming\Thunderbird folder is the location of the profiles.ini file that tells Thunderbird where the profile is stored. The default location is in the profiles sub folder of Thunderbird.
2. The Thunderbird profile does not have to be in a sub folder, it can actually be stored almost anywhere. only by opening the profiles.ini file will you know where it is looking.
3. The account setting part of Thunderbird has the capacity for the user to manually change the location of data for the account. We have seen a lot of folk moving data to their user folds and generally making a complete mess of the Thunderbird folder. So there are now checks that refuse the dangerous locations. Those checks can not fix old broken installs, just prevent new ones.
I think your initial install found your old profile, but not your old profile data because you had set it to be stored somewhere else.
Modified by Matt