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How do I open in Win10 profiles that are in the local folder

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 11 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

james.orr
james.orr
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In Win 10, I have three .default profiles in this folder: 

              C:\Users\**me**\AppData\Local\Thunderbird\Profiles

One is the active default. the other two are backups from prior years. I have not yet found the path to solution for opening these folders. I need to refer to the older emails. How do I do this?

In Win 10, I have three .default profiles in this folder: C:\Users\**me**\AppData\Local\Thunderbird\Profiles One is the active default. the other two are backups from prior years. I have not yet found the path to solution for opening these folders. I need to refer to the older emails. How do I do this?

All Replies (3)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Launch TB in the active profile, then Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles, launch a different profile. If there are no other profiles listed, create a new one and select a backup profile folder as the source in the profile creation dialog.

james.orr
james.orr Question owner
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This was a good baby step. I opened TB in the active profile. 

 I followed the path to: Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles
 Then I used Create a New Profile, and selected next
    I put in a name Backup1, for example,
    then used Choose Folder to select one of the existing profiles.
 This got me a new set of files with a new name like 2esp8mg5.Backup
     I selected Launch profile from Profile: Backup 1
     Which opened a new TB page that acted like a new user.
     I stopped here.

Do you suppose my initial profile from before TB 78.xxx did not get copied? Will I be required to follow the set up instructions for each of the profiles I want to rescue?

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Sometimes TB doesn't read a profile folder correctly, 'thanks' to a new profile strategy in TB 78. Rather than try to repair the profile, it's probably easier to just copy the mail from the backup profiles into the active one. Look for the mbox files in Mail/<popserver>, ImapMail/<imapserver> or Mail/Local Folders. These are the large files with no extension, named after folders, e.g. Inbox. Copy the mbox files into Mail/Local Folders of the active profile, with TB closed, then restart TB and find the folders under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.