I think the process described here should help you https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1227404 That describes putting a few mail folders back into a Thunderbird profile. That should leave your current Inbox alone while restoring the Local Folder contents. Please read though and see if the process makes sense. In your case, in brief - create the folder names in Thunderbird Local Folders where you expect to find them, then replace those folders with your existing Mailboxes folder (and subfolders?) from your previous profile. As that article warned, this is not a supported way to do this and you are smart to be cautious. Please read this to find where your profiles are, and how to copy the whole of each Profile to a separate location first. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data Find out where your current Profile is - From the Help menu, click Troubleshooting Information. In the Application Basics section, Profile Folder, click on Open Folder. Note the profile folder name ??????.default. Once you have it open - check for a second or more profile folders - one of them should have your Local Folders - Mailboxes in it. Note the profile name of this older profile. Close Thunderbird and make safe copies of both the current Profile and the older Profile before continuing. Then proceed as with question 1227404. Be sure to have Thunderbird closed while copying the old Mailboxes contents to the new Profile's Local Folders. If you do have subfolders inside Mailboxes - copy the whole of Mailboxes, with all .sbd files and mbox files (they have no extension), and msf files. You don't really need the .msf files, it's just easier to take the whole set together in one if you have multiple files to copy. This is an example of what those files should look like - each a pair or trio - a file with no extension, one .msf, and also one .sbd for any that are subfolders. A folder with no mail content may not have an .msf file. Local Folders > Family.sbd > > Dad > > Dad.msf > Family > Inbox.sbd > Inbox > Inbox.msf > Sent > Sent.msf > Trash > Trash.msf Post back on this question if you get stuck.

AgnesRM, Thanks for your prompt and detailed reply. I am swamped with other things these days and want a good slice of quiet time to try the steps you described. I'll probably find that slice this coming Thursday or perhaps Friday. So, don't think I ignore your reply, which I am very thankful for; I'll reply again with results, probably late this week. Jean L. Loyer

AgnesRM, Worked on my problem yesterday. Per your instructions, copied the old and new profiles to a thumb drive. Set up the "Profiles Manager" choice option to access either the old or the new profile and verify that the Mailboxes were present in Local Folders when choosing the old profile.

Problem: the old profile does not show up in the Profiles Manager choice box, only the new one. As the "Profiles" folder in AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird" shows both old and new, I don't understand why the old profile does not show up in "Profile Manager".

Can you help with that? The solutions mentioned in the 1227404 paper are not clear to me (and seem risky to a semi-literate computer user like me). I can elaborate on that if you wish, but it seems to me that accessing the old profile thru Profiles Managers and getting my Mailboxes back is the easiest and least dangerous solution. What do you think?

Thanks for your help. Jean L. Loyer

1227404 suggests you first open TB and create new Local Folders with the names you want in the new profile. In your case start at Step 3 - you don't have any old broken versions of the folders, so we are creating the place to put the ones from your old profile. Then open the current new profile in File Explorer (go there with Troubleshooting - Profile - Open folder). Step 4. Close TB. Navigate to those new empty folders you just created in File Explorer. This makes sure you are where TB now expects Local Folders to be. Step 5 - replace the empty folders with your old ones - Delete the new empty folder files, and copy the old files with those names into the same location. That is, at least the files with no extension, and the ones with .sbd. Step 6 - start TB in the new profile and see if your Local Folders are back. TB will actually create the .msf files once it finds them. The reason for doing that and not just telling TB to use the old profile, is that you have been receiving, responding, moving emails in the new profile - the old profile doesn't have that up to date info. Inserting the missing part, which I believe you said is all in Local Folders, should not disrupt any of your recent activity. Also, you want to leave the active profile where TB expects to find it for future updates, and it's possible that there is a change in structure between an older profile and the current one.

AgnesRM, Many thanks for your very prompt and detailed answer. I will try to implement your solution during the weekend when I have a little quiet time and get back to you with the results, one way or the other on Monday or Tuesday. My old mailboxes contain about 250 messages in 50-55 different mailboxes, a few with sub-folders, so that it will be some time to install all of them using your method. However, we only need to make it work on a handful to prove the principle and I can complete the transfer of most files later in small increments when I have time. Thanks again for your help. I appreciate your patience and detailed answer. Back to you Monday or Tuesday. Jean L. Loyer

Hi Yes, you are quite right - try the process with a few, perhaps just a main file, sub folder and sub folder content file, or two. If it works, then for all the rest you may not need to create empty dummy files in TB. Again, try a few starting at Step 5, as you know the right location, and copy/paste a set of files & subfolder files. Remember to have TB shut off when copying files into the profile. If TB can then find the newly copied files, you can copy/paste the rest to the same location in one go without making empty folders first. Let us know how you get on! Agnes

AgnesRM, Thanks for holding my hand. Will try to apply your instructions later today or tomorrow. Will report when done or when stuck. Jean L. Loyer

In case it helps, this is the process (borrowed from Toad-Hall who is very good at this) in point form

• Menu app icon > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
• Under 'Application Basics' - locate 'Profile Folder' and click on 'Open Folder'

A new window opens showing the contents of your 'Profile name' folder which is located here: C:\\Users\User Name\Appdata\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\'profile name'

• Exit Thunderbird now.
• Click on 'Mail' folder under C:\\Users\User Name\Appdata\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\'profile name'
• Click on 'Local Folders' folder to see contents (you should see those empty folders created in TB earlier, just to confirm you are in the right place)

• Access the external drive and Copy all the mbox files (those that have no extension) and if applicable - all folders with .sbd extension.
• Paste them into the 'Local Folders' folder.
• Start Thunderbird.
• You should see emails in the 'Local Folders' mail account.

AgnesRM, Reporting today as I said I would. Made major progress. Following your instructions, I created a new Mailboxes folder in Local Folders; then, after creating 2 empty mailboxes in it and checking that they showed in Local Folders/Mailboxes, moved about 90% of my old profile emails to the new profile without problems (still have about 10% in complex subfolder trees, which I'll hopefully complete transferring tomorrow). My recent emails are still there, not touched and the file structure is now xxx.default-release instead of the old xxx.default which should allow future updatings.

I still have some non-mailboxes files and folders left in the old profile which are not present in the new. I'll send you a list tomorrow but they don't seem to be missed, as TB seems to be working properly.

So, I'll send a (hopefully) last message on this tomorrow, with my many thanks for your help and patience. Jean L. Loyer

AgnesRM,

Sorry that I did not report Monday as promised; I got sidetracked by entirely unrelated and fairly urgent problems. Didn't have time to complete the mailbox restoration before handling them. Anyway, I did have some time last night and completed the mailboxes transfer from my old profile to the new one. I also found out why I had problems earlier: I was unwittingly dragging files from the old profile to the new, but I found that you must actually copy and paste instead of dragging. Don't know why. All the folders in the old profile appear in the new with one exception: no "blocklists" folder (plus 3 other empty or tiny ones, < a few bytes). This missing "blocklists" folder probably relates to the lack (yet) of blocked extensions in the new profile, which is not a problem.

So, my issue with Thunderbird seems to be solved. Many thanks again for guiding me patiently and thoroughly; I don't know how to express my gratitude better.

I'll let you close this thread.

Jean L. Loyer

Hi and I am glad you have succeeded! The best way to thank me is "Mark as solved". In the Mozilla support site in your question - you should see a button to mark the chosen solution. Pick the post from me that made the solution clearest for later readers.