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

Reinstalled Thunderbird

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 17 views
  • Last reply by atErik

more options

I recently had to reinstall Thunderbird because it stopped downloading my emails (could still send them). I started a new profile but would like to go back to my old one with about 10 years of archived emails. I see what I think is my old and new profile folder under the profiles directory. The new one has the extension "default-release" while the old one has "default". I tried to remove the new one and got an error message that profile could not be found. I also tried to change the extension of the old one to match the working new one but again, error says profile cannot be found. Any ideas how to go back to the old profile and restore my old emails? Thanks for any help!

I recently had to reinstall Thunderbird because it stopped downloading my emails (could still send them). I started a new profile but would like to go back to my old one with about 10 years of archived emails. I see what I think is my old and new profile folder under the profiles directory. The new one has the extension "default-release" while the old one has "default". I tried to remove the new one and got an error message that profile could not be found. I also tried to change the extension of the old one to match the working new one but again, error says profile cannot be found. Any ideas how to go back to the old profile and restore my old emails? Thanks for any help!

All Replies (2)

more options

Ideally you shouldn't be altering the names, and deleting directories risks dataloss.

Please post a screen shot of your profiles.ini file, detailed list of /profiles directory which lists directories, and the first screen of the profile directory that you thing contains your data. Also a shot of help > troubleshooting > about:profiles

more options

please make backup of your ALL TB-profiles. then see here which of these options are good/suitable for your need. if you have time then please read multiple times, so it becomes easy to you.