Look at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_how-to-find-your-profile and then look in the corresponding directory on your external drive to find your old ********.default file. Copy your old profile to the directory where your current profile is stored. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles to switch to your old profile OR edit 'profiles.ini' to change the 'Path' to the name of your old profile. Restart Thunderbird.

After I had to re-install Win7 and then Thunderbird, I found my old profile on my backup drive but I cannot find a comparable subfolder on Drive C: under USERS/Fred/Appdata as a destination for my old Profile folder. Can I just copy the entire AppData folder over to C:Users/Fred/  ? Will this bring back all my contact groups also?

Fred, Windows is not very friendly when you are looking for hidden files, but DOS works great! Start a Command Prompt and enter

"cd AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles" then enter
"dir"

You should see your current profile: *8chars*.default Copy your backup profile to the same directory. You can even do that in the Command Prompt e.g.

"copy (complete path to backup profile) ."

The dot says 'to here'. Then switch profiles. How's that?

duggabe,

I am going to try this approach, but how does one change a profile after doing the above procedure?

Thanks, Fred

duggabe, Two more small questions.. 1- I am also looking to retrieve my bookmarks. Will they come back as part of the Profile?

2- Should I copy the entire APPDATA folder back to C:: ? Or will that screw up the registry for the new install of Win7 ? Or some other dire outcome?

Thanks, Fred

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles to switch to your old profile.

1. Remember that we are talking about Thunderbird here, but it is a similar process for Firefox: the name in the path will be 'Mozilla' instead of 'Thunderbird'.
2. For now, stick to the profiles.

duggabe,

I am back to trying to restore my T'bird profile and have one more question; I now have 50-60 new emails that I do not want to "lose" but want to eventually file into my old profile folders. The Profiles in the current C:/windows/users etc folder vs the C:/Oldwindows/users folder have different filenames. How do I merge the two into the current Profile without wiping out the newer emails?

By looking into the two profiles, I can tell that the older one has the groupings in the Address Book (*.mab files) that the new profile does not have.

There is an add-on which allows import and export of emails. You can use it to manipulate email between the old and the new. See http://barryduggan.info/exportMail.php for instructions.

I have installed the ImportExportTool file and before I make a massive error, I want to clarify what I am trying to do because either I don't understand this procedure or this program won't really do what I expect it to do.

My current profile has 60 or so emails and no folders. My old installation (and what is in C:/OldWindows as a backup) has numerous folders and many hundreds of emails that I need to bring into the present installation of T'bird. What I see is a warning that to import emails(files) back into folders, you must first select the folder in the present installation of T'bird an then import the files belonging to that folder. Wow, I am positive I cannot faithfully reconstruct the complete set of folders and sub-folders I had originally.

So, is it possible I can somehow save the emails that are in the new profile, or swap profiles so the old one is the master, and then import the files from the "new" profile into the old profile and then file them into the old folders? I seem to recall doing something like this when I moved from Outlook to T'bird a couple of years ago..

Thanks for your help..

Fred615 said

So, is it possible I can somehow save the emails that are in the new profile, or swap profiles so the old one is the master, and then import the files from the "new" profile into the old profile and then file them into the old folders? I seem to recall doing something like this when I moved from Outlook to T'bird a couple of years ago.. Thanks for your help..

Yes, you are on the right track here. Be sure to back up your "new" profile somewhere before you start the procedure; then you can always recover...

Ok, I have made a copy of the new profile and attempted to import the old profile. I get to the point where it asks for a name for the imported profile and I am stumped. Are they looking for my email account name?

Import/Export tools is to import and export mail (not profiles). So, using your new profile, export the new mail you have gotten since the old profile was active. Use some directory like temp - not associated with TB at all. Then switch to your old profile and import your saved "new" mail. At that point, I think you will be "good to go" using your old profile all the time.

I'm still out of sync with what needs to be done, I guess.. I tried moving the old profile physically to the new location but Tbird wouldn't even open. Gave me an error message. So I copied the new profile back and it works. So how do I "switch" profiles? And what format do I use when I export the new emails?

OK, the https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles might need some additional explanation. Here's the plan: I assume from previous discussion that the old profile has the most of the email, addrress book, etc. that you want to use, so my directions are to move the new mail to the old profile. Since the new profile and the old profile should have different names, each of the form ********.default (mine happens to be jzxma1tk.default), what you need is the old profile and the new profile in the same directory. NOTE: do the file copying with Thunderbird NOT running. So copy the old profile into your AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles directory KEEPING THE SAME NAME. Now when you enter 'dir' in the Command Prompt, you will see both profiles. Using the Command Prompt, rename the old profile from ********.default to ********.old, and the new profile from ********.default to ********.new For example: [ren jzxma1tk.default jzxma1tk.old] and [ren jzxma1tk.default jzxma1tk.new] (no brackets, of course). Do another [dir] to see that you got it right. To switch from one profile to the other, do the following:

1. stop Thunderbird (File -> Exit) or click the red X button in the upper right of the window.
2. in the Command Prompt window, enter ["c:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -p] without the brackets. Pay close attention to the spaces, quotes, and capital letters.
3. you will get a small window titled "Thunderbird - Choose User Profile"
4. Uncheck "Use the selected profile without asking at startup"
5. highlight the profile name you want to use. (try the new one first)
6. click 'Start Thunderbird'

The next time you start Thunderbird (the normal way), you will get the window titled "Thunderbird - Choose User Profile" again, so you can then choose whichever profile you want. Now, to handle the email, run with the new profile.

1. right click on the folder you want to export (such as Inbox).
2. hover the mouse over ImportExportTools and then 'Export all messages in the folder' and then click on 'EML format'
3. in the 'Select the destination directory', choose a folder such as Documents or your home directory (mine is Barry) and click 'Open'.
4. that will produce a folder called 'Inbox_date-time' and a file named 'index.html'
5. if you double click on the index.html, you will get a nicely formatted presentation of what is in the folder.
6. Next, restart Thunderbird and choose the old profile.
7. right click on the folder you want to import (such as Inbox).
8. hover the mouse over ImportExportTools and then 'Import all messages from a directory' and then click on 'just from the directory'.
9. in the 'Select a directory to search the files', navigate to the folder where you saved the email above.
10. click on the folder (such as Inbox_date-time) and click 'Open'

Once you have all of your email in your old profile, you can run with it all the time. Just check "Use the selected profile without asking at startup" when you are satisfied with what you have.

Whew! Did that do it?

I'm ready to try this procedure but I have one question; actually two...

1. You say to copy the old profile into AppData\Roaming, etc.. Do you mean the C:\Users\Fred\App etc ?? Assuming that the Old profile is in C:\Windows.Old\Users\Fred\App etc..

2. Is it OK to leave the final working Proifile as *******.old ? Or will TB be looking for *******.default  ?

I think success is near !!!

1) Yes. at that point you should have the two profiles in the same C:\Users\Fred\App.....

2) Yes, it would probably be better to leave the *.old name. It might help keep your sanity (if you have any left ;) Once you are happy with what you have, just check the "Use the selected profile without asking at startup". Thunderbird will remember the profile name and not present the window titled "Thunderbird - Choose User Profile" again.

Good luck

I got as far as entering the "**** tb.exe -p" into the Command Window and this is what I got..

No window "TB Choose User Profile" opened..

??

I see you tried the 64-bit version. Do you have that?

Use the regular Windows File Explorer and look in 'Program Files' and in 'Program Files (x86)' to see if you can find Thunderbird. Use the appropriate path in your command.

Also try '-ProfileManager' instead of '-p'

Let me know...

duggabe,

Whew! It all worked fine once I got the ProfileManager added to the command and I also remembered to close TB.!!

In fact, it looks like all the new emails actually imported themselves into the OLD Profile..!

A HUGE thank you for all your patient help. Couldn't have done it without your help..

Many thanks, Fred