You need multiple profiles rather than multiple installations of Thunderbird. Even if you copy and rename a second instance of Thunderbird so that you have two distinct Thunderbirds, they will both refer to the same default profile location.

Personally I run private and work accounts all in the same instance of Thunderbird. I think most people who run multiple profiles are unnecessarily making life hard for themselves. I'd be curious to see the wording of any rules that you interpret as necessitating separate profiles.

You can set Thunderbird to run with a named profile, so you can set up two shortcuts/links/batches/scripts each of which invoke Thunderbird with a specific profile. You can use Thunderbird's own profile manager to select a profile but it's a bit clunky for routine use. Use it to create a second profile, then set up scripts or whatever to launch your two separate instances.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles

OK, I did nto tell the whole story, because tI thought that it would be a simple way.

The whole story is that there is a plug in that I use that communicates with an external CRM system where it stores copies of incoming and outgoing messages.

The situation is that I am involved in more than on project that requuires me to save my messages in one of 2 different systems, depending on the message that I am sending.

The TBIrd module does not support more than one profile and does not allow distinction of which database to use depending on the destination.

I coudl always go back and manually change this each time that I switch projects, but as you coudl imagine, this coudl be tedious. Closing one version of TBird and loading another seemed as a less tedious task.

So, the problem is the module does not support profiles, like TBird does. Otherwise, this woudl work.

Thanks

Joseph

You can run two or more instances of Thunderbird concurrently. You can install two or more versions if your operating environment demands that you do. You will still need to understand how to make each instance/installation run with the appropriate profile, because internally Thunderbird is hard coded to look in one specific location to find the user's profile, but as indicated previously, this can be overridden by use of a command line that directs TB to the preferred profile.

I wonder how the designer of your system expected this to be done. Given that, like most email clients, Thunderbird uses its own proprietary message store, its relationship to other systems/databases is somewhat undefined.

OK, I was not up front with all info, as I never know how much is needed when asking a question:

I am using TBird in conjunction with a CRM software.

The module allows me to send a message via TBird, and also save a copy of it in the CRM.

The plug in that I am using only allows 1 CRM site to be used at a time. I have 3 of them. At the present time, I need to open the prefs in the TBird module, and change the CRM in quetsion to be able to save messages to it.

The author does not foresee allowing the addition of a 2nd or 3rd profile. This is why I was wondering about being able to use different installations/profiles for TBird. This might have been a way to bypass the non-function in the CRM module.

Thanks

Joseph