Hi 1) You need the copy of the old profile (folder name would have a string of letters and numbers and .default) or the entire folder (one level up) called Profiles. Sounds like you do have one of those - I am just not sure which. 2) You need to check where the new Thunderbird is looking for the profile (the location where the new Profiles folder is).

Then there are a few ways to let Thunderbird know which profile to use. If there is nothing in the new profile - a brand new installation, and you are copying between the same or similar versions of Thunderbird, you may copy the contents of the old xxxxx.default folder into the new xxxxx.default folder. It sounds as if you tried this unsuccessfully?

Or - if you have a copy of the whole structure from Roaming down you can copy that whole structure as described here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer (The video is very helpful. Customize the article for Win7.)

OR - copy the old profile into the Profiles folder and tell Thunderbird which profile it should use. A few ways to achieve this - - Use the Profile Manager https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles which allows you to select which profile to use, and you can edit the profile name to be easier to tell them apart. - Edit the profiles.ini file - only if you are careful and confident of the full path and file name. (Mentioned at the end of the article on Profile Manager).

However - if the first method was what you did, and it dd not work - the files within the 4os4x7ue.default were entirely replaced by the files from your old profile - but Thunderbird could not open them? Then you may be switching from an older version of Thunderbird that has a different file structure. For that you may need more expert help than I can offer. Good luck, Agnes

Agnes

thank you for taking the time to reply in such detail. Yes I did have the profile folder and your second "OR" fit my situation. However when comparing the files in my saved profile with the files in the profile created when thunderbird was installed - they look nothing like each other. I think I must assume that whatever corrupted the operating system also got some of my tbird files and give it up as tough luck!

Thanks for your help !!

schuh8 said

Agnes thank you for taking the time to reply in such detail. Yes I did have the profile folder and your second "OR" fit my situation. However when comparing the files in my saved profile with the files in the profile created when thunderbird was installed - they look nothing like each other. I think I must assume that whatever corrupted the operating system also got some of my tbird files and give it up as tough luck! Thanks for your help !!

You can most likely get the email, using the import/export tools addon. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools-ng/?src=ss

Once the add-on is installed, create a folder in "local Folders" to hold imported mail and right clicking that folder select the import export tools. Point the tools to import a profile and see how you go. I have not used this particular feature, I always import mbox files. But it sounds promising. IF it does not work, all is not necessarily lost. The oringinal mbox files, or some of them may still be useful and you can tackle it that way.

There is also a third option, that is to paste the files from the old profile into a new one. At this point I would suggest you create a new profile specially for the experiment as it replaces what is already there. I have some note here that are meant for recovering a profile, but also include how to create a new one in Thunderbird 68. The About:profiles stuff I talk of in the blog posting is new in Thunderbird 68 and I really have not had time to formally put in into a knowledgebase article.

Hi Matt has some good suggestions, try those options. Just a quick note regarding your thought about corruption - if your old version of Tbird was not version 68, its original profile file structure may not 'fit' any more. Hence Matt's suggestion to use the import addon, or copy over individual files (like Inbox, Sent etc) into the new profile. See if you can see those files within the old profile. Don't despair yet, they may not be gone. Agnes