I have used T'bird for over a decade now without problems - until Windows Features Updates came along. I have 2 email service providers and a combined inbox, and until now have been setting up as .pop3 accounts. I also havesubfolders for longterm storage of things like software registrations. Windows Updates to new Features editions always fail, sometimes with a blue screen of death, and require complete re-installation of Windows (don't bother going there - even the best Microsoft techs can't work it out), so I back up the C:\Users\.........\Roaming\Thunderbird directory and then copy it back to a clean Windows install. Unfortunately, this still only works some of the time: more often all the subfolders are lost or a few months/years are lost (and yes, I've tried all the tricks listed elsewhere). Careful inspection of the backups reveals that somehow, a few months or year or two's changes get deleted from the copies. So I'm not asking for new tricks to recover my Profiles, but just a simple method to store the contents of some of my more critical Mail subfolders in an independent directory independent of Thunderbird and Profiles, short of copying each one separately into a word processor. Any help on this greatly appreciated.