Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Recovery of Address Book ?

  • 1 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

more options

After a Fresh Re-installation of my Windows 10, I have re-installed Thunderbird, but the address book is empty.

How do I recover my Address Book Contacts please ?

After a Fresh Re-installation of my Windows 10, I have re-installed Thunderbird, but the address book is empty. How do I recover my Address Book Contacts please ?

All Replies (1)

more options

After installing Thunderbird, you would run Thunderbird for the first time and this would create a new default profile folder.

Did you immediately create a new mail account at prompt and connect to server to download emails? OR Did you not create any mail account and instead exit Thunderbird. Then access the Profile folders and copy paste a backup of your old profile overwriting the new profile,... like this.... Access: C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird Delete the new default 'Thunderbird' folder. Paste the copied backup 'Thunderbird' folder into the 'Roaming' folder. Start Thunderbird.


A Fresh Re-installation of my Windows 10 usually creates a 'windows.old' folder which should contain all your old profile info. Can you see a 'windows.old' folder on desktop ? OR Do you have a backup of the 'Roaming'/'Thunderbird' folder ?

Thunderbird by default stores its profile here: C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird This should be in the 'windows.old' folder.

Do you have any backup of profile? Do you have any exported address books in LDIF or *.csv format ?