Where are the server account information stored in the profile / registry in windows
My setup
Portable Thunderbird Running from : \portable\thunderbird Profile Directory: My Documents\Emails Windows 10 Home Message Accounts: Multiple approx. 10 Message Mode : IMAP
Unfortunately I had an issue with windows that broke my main drive, and seemed not to be recoverable even after a repair, I got a fresh new drive, and reset windows from scratch.
I know I had a copy of the thuderbird profile \My documents\emails
I can still see my intact imap folder in "My documents" , but I cant figure out where thunderbird saves the multiple server connection setups.
Can someone give me an idea, I understand there might not be the password for each server saved in the same place. That is not an issue, I just want to bring the imap folders across, rather than download all the data, and the place where the server details are stored, to ensure a backup of this data , to speed up the new rebuild .
Many thanks
All Replies (5)
All of that is stored in the profile. If you have the profile, you can copy it to the PC. If you use the new version 102, you can start Thunderbird, click home tab (ignoring Email wizard) and then click the Import button to import your profile into Thunderbird.
Thanks David for your prompt reply, I did look at that route at the start, thinking this would be the best way, but it always failed when I pointed it at the imap folder of a particular account, thunderbird can be forced to see the files but no association to the server account.
Do you know where that information is stored, as I looked through a lot of the files and can find no logging of it, and within being portable , to me it should be self contained and I should be able literally set up a new dir, with a fresh thunderbird portable (extracting the files from the exe), and then move the imapNail folder directory data to the new install and viola ... but it doesn't work in practise.
Maybe it something I am doing it incorrectly :)
Are you trying to run this from a portable setup? My suggestion is for the entire profile, not just the account mail folder. Yes, the profile is self-contained and that I why recommend using it. For portable versions, the profile is usually in the Data folder, possibly Data/profile. Copy yours to replace whatever default profile the portable version installs.
Thanks for your help David, its appreciated
Yep , because I originally setup thunderbird and my profile to have the directory of \document\email , it didn't create a appdata folder , on not one I could find.
Yep tried that initially but you can see mail folders but no accounts
Just to confirm this, I am just about to setup a clean install, to a different directory on a different drive so lets see r:\portable\thunderbird [download thunderbird, expanding it] , this produces the core sub directory in the thunderbird directory
Create a shortcut to r:\portable\thunderbird.exe and also r:\portable\thunderbird.exe -p
I will then create a folder called r:\portable\email, copy the whole of the profile directory in to it, then run thunderbird.exe -p/p and then set the email directory to R:\portable\thunderbird\email
I then run it , and all I get is a thing about creating a new account, click no, and nothing is displayed.
There seems to be one critical file missing , and need to work out, how to find the "control file" with all the multiple accounts and server details
Whats your next thought ? Thankyou
The portable version does not work properly with profile manager. You need to do as I suggested, copy the full profile into the appropriate folder for the portable version, which may be data/profile in your portable setup. My suggestion: - install the portable version wherever you want - start the portable version so it sets up its default profile. - exit portable and confirm profile location. It will be somewhere within the portable folder as a subfolder, probably named Data, and the profile will probably be a folder within it, possibly named Profile. - copy your saved profile there, overlaying the default profile. - start the portable version and all should be there.