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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Two drives. New profile created on "D". Default profile on "C" deleted. After reboot Tbird creates and loads default on "C". How can I use the one on "D"?

  • 1 reply
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Zenos

Jagjunk
Jagjunk
more options

Win 10. New profile file on "D" overwritten with the content from the old PC. Works fine until Tbird reload. Then the new "D" profile is still there but not used and the default profile is created on "C" and used instead of my profile created on "D". I do not want the profile to be on "C" as this is the SSD drive I use for games and it runs out of space.

Win 10. New profile file on "D" overwritten with the content from the old PC. Works fine until Tbird reload. Then the new "D" profile is still there but not used and the default profile is created on "C" and used instead of my profile created on "D". I do not want the profile to be on "C" as this is the SSD drive I use for games and it runs out of space.

Chosen solution

How did you create the profile on D:? "Overwritten" means you copied it from somewhere else?

Thunderbird will always look in the place recommended by Microsoft, i.e. C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\

and here it will seek a file named profiles.ini

That file can tell where Thunderbird needs to go for the actual profile data. By default it's in a folder alongside profiles.ini named Profiles.

You can move Profiles wherever you want, and adjust profiles.ini to suit. But I guess you also moved profiles.ini, so Thunderbird starts over as if you didn't have a profile.

The best way to adjust profiles.ini is to start Thunderbird with the profile manager and use it to configure the data location.

You can hand-edit the profiles.ini file ; set IsRelative to false and change the pathname to the full absolute pathname, with backslashes, e.g.

D:\thunderbird\abc123def.default

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (1)

Zenos
Zenos
more options

Chosen Solution

How did you create the profile on D:? "Overwritten" means you copied it from somewhere else?

Thunderbird will always look in the place recommended by Microsoft, i.e. C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\

and here it will seek a file named profiles.ini

That file can tell where Thunderbird needs to go for the actual profile data. By default it's in a folder alongside profiles.ini named Profiles.

You can move Profiles wherever you want, and adjust profiles.ini to suit. But I guess you also moved profiles.ini, so Thunderbird starts over as if you didn't have a profile.

The best way to adjust profiles.ini is to start Thunderbird with the profile manager and use it to configure the data location.

You can hand-edit the profiles.ini file ; set IsRelative to false and change the pathname to the full absolute pathname, with backslashes, e.g.

D:\thunderbird\abc123def.default