I had to re-install Thunderbird and create a new profile, but it will not locate my old mail files saved on a different drive.
Yesterday, Thunderbird was freezing when I tried sending messages. I downloaded the latest version and installed it, but it still froze. This morning I tried and got the message that Thunderbird was already running, but not responding ... and must be closed. I closed it and got the message that my Profile could not be loaded... I used the Profile Manager to delete the old profile after which Thunderbird ran, but none my mail folders were listed.
Some years back I was able to tell Thunderbird to move my mail fiolders to a different location (on drive E:), but I cannot see anything in the current version that allows me to tell Thunderbird to look there. There is information about re-locating whole profiles, but not just these files. If I could merge my new profile with the existing files, all on drive E:, that would be an acceptable solution
All Replies (3)
I wouldn't merge - you're asking for more trouble.
If the windows directory still exists, point to the old profile directory http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile
In the future, you might want to read up more on profiles, and not delete them :) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data
Thanks Wayne for your suggestions. I was partly successful in retreiving an older profile. I went to my Acronis backup file and found an older profile which I activated using the manager. I find that I now have two identities. My new one created when re-installed Thunderbird and part of my old one. The old one lists my older directories, but they are empty. Under the old identity, it says it is a Special Account with no identities associated with it. It also says that my Local Directory is E:\Mail (as before) but, as I say above, there is nothing visible in the folders. The actual folder, E:\Mail, still exists and contains the original subdirectories with lots of .sbd files. I would be happy to re-create the file system in my new account if I can copy the old data to it. Is this possible. I have also discovered that my new account is IMAP and not POP, but I do know how to fix this. John
Modified by John Rostron
Hello Wayne, I followed all the instructions, Moved the \%appsdata%\Profiles\* directory to d:\thunderbird\profiles\* Changed the profiles.ini to: [General] StartWithLastProfile=0
[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=0 Path=d:/thunderbird/Profiles/f6xowrwk.default Default=1
All that happens when I go back into thunderbird is a brand new profile is created on Drive C: Does not seem to even look at drive D:
am I doing something wrong???