Does the profile have files larger than 4GB? If it does, and the flash drive is formatted FAT32, instead of NTFS, it won't copy files larger than 4GB. Some drives have FAT32 by default to make them compatible with media players.

Dear Sfhowes,

Thanks for your prompt reply. You are correct, the profile file does have files (probably my inbox) larger than 4gb. It seems the way around this is to format the flash drive to NTFS, is that right? However, in the file system field on my 64gb flash drive it states exFAT, not FAT32 and not NTFS. Any idea how I can re-format the flash drive to NTFS?

Thanks again for your assistance.

Joel Hornstein [email]

The drive that's exFAT should work as well as NTFS, but I don't know why it wouldn't accept the profile folder (might be due to missing exFAT drivers (alternate) on the XP computer). Right-click the drive in Explorer, Format..., to reformat.

Hello again,

You are 2 for 2, as the link you were kind enough to provide downloaded and worked perfectly. This time when I attempted to copy the profile file to the flash drive this error message came up: "Cannot copy parent. It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again." Any idea what this means and how to fix it? Thanks again for your assistance. Joel H.

Besides closing TB while you copy, check that there is no antivirus app scanning the profile. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) to view running apps.

Hello again,

You are 3 for 3, as I was able to close TB in the Task Manager. Able to copy entire profile file. Tried to test it by copying the file on a laptop I have running windows 8 with TB version 68.12.0 (32 bit). (TB version on the desktop computer is 52.9.1 32bit.) Emails in the inbox did not change to reflect the update. They remained ending in 2019; should reflect emails recently received in 2020. Also copied the entire TB file (not just the profile file) onto the 64gb flash drive and copied that on the TB file on the laptop, but same result. No update to the emails. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks as always for your assistance. Joel H.

If you copied the profile or Thunderbird folder correctly into the proper location, with TB closed, you should see the same setup on the target and source computers. Are the accounts POP or IMAP? The folders might update if you right-click, Properties, Repair Folder.

My account is a POP account. Right-clicked on the profiles and tb files and then clicked under properties. Saw the following: general, sharing, security and customize. No mention of repair folder. Maybe it's in a different location in Windows 8? I could see under TB as well as profiles folders that some files were modified as of today, 9/9/20, but somehow the inbox folder only goes up to 2019. Any additional suggestions how to fix this most welcome. Thanks, Joel H.

I meant right-click the folder in TB, not Explorer.

If you delete or rename popstate.dat in the account subfolder of the profile folder, e.g. Mail\pop.gmail.com, while TB is closed, upon restart all messages on the POP server will be downloaded.

Right clicking on any folder in TB and then clicking on properties shows general, sharing, security and customize. No option to repair or update a folder. My usual procedure is to download emails from the POP server on my hard drive. I then delete junk, spam etc and am left with emails I want to save on the hard drive. So I do not want to download all messages on the POP server, as I would have dozens of emails I have already deleted. What I want is to be able to transfer emails from the hard drive saved on the flash drive to a new (Windows 10) computer I will have to buy at some point. Right now, it's not working on the laptop running Windows 8. There are programs that allow another person to have access to your computer. If you are willing, I'm game for you to access my laptop to see if you can figure out what is wrong. I did a quick search and found a program that looks like it would work OK. Alternatively, feel free to call me to discuss: [Personal information removed by moderator. Please read Mozilla Support rules and guidelines, thanks.] Thanks again for your assistance. Joel H.

Hope my last post didn't scare you off. Your assistance is most needed and much appreciated.

Joel H.

(Apologies to the moderator. Didn't know I couldn't list my phone number.)

re :Right clicking on any folder in TB and then clicking on properties shows general, sharing, security and customize.

You only get those options when you are using Windows Explorer to see the Thunderbird profile folders or indeed any folder on computer. general, sharing, security and customize are the standard Windows properties on any folder viewed via Explorer.

To repair a mail account folder, you need to start Thunderbird, so you can see all the mail account folders in the Folder Pane in Thunderbird. Then right click on a folder and select 'Properties'. Click on 'Repair Folder' and click on 'OK'.

Dear Toad-Hall,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I knew I was stupid concerning computers, but I didn't realize I was that stupid. Followed your instructions and clicked on repair folder for both the inbox and sent folders. Unfortunately, emails I attempted to copy from a flash drive to a laptop running Windows 8 did not appear. I don't understand what I am doing wrong. Perhaps you can give me step by step idiot-proof instructions how to copy the files to the laptop. Thanks for any assistance you can provide. Joel Hornstein [email]

Dear Toad-Hall,

Have tried following the instructions in the TB help section for restoring a profile to a different location, but per my previous post, emails on the flash drive do not appear in the TB on my laptop. TB version used to put files on the flash drive is 52.9.1 (using Windows XP); TB version on the laptop (using Windows 8) is 68.12.0. Could that be the reason? In file explorer on the laptop, I can see files in the profiles folder that were updated as of 9/10/20, so at least some of them transferred from the flash drive to the laptop. Yet when I open the TB program, no current emails are in the inbox. I noticed in reviewing my TB file that you were kind enough to answer a different question several years ago, so you are clearly a resident expert for all matters TB. Would very much appreciate your assistance as to how I can solve this problem. Joel Hornstein