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

I was trying to move thunderbird to a new computer and my profiles are messed up

  • 4 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by david

more options

I thought I followed the instructions from thunderbird, but now all I get is thunderbird can't load because the profiles are missing or wrong. I have uninstalled thunderbird, reinstalled it, and still get the same message. I deleted the profiles in local and roaming, and reinstalled, and no profiles were created. How do I get the installation program to re-create the profiles like a new install?

I thought I followed the instructions from thunderbird, but now all I get is thunderbird can't load because the profiles are missing or wrong. I have uninstalled thunderbird, reinstalled it, and still get the same message. I deleted the profiles in local and roaming, and reinstalled, and no profiles were created. How do I get the installation program to re-create the profiles like a new install?

Chosen solution

If you want a fully clean install, remove the ...appdata\roaming\thunderbird folder, not just the profile folder. And then reinstall. Do you have the old profile? Is the old computer still available? The cleanest install would be to - do fresh install of thunderbird and exit - on old computer, with Thunderbird not running, copy c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird to USB stick - on new computer, copy that thunderbird folder to c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming, and allow the overwrites. - start thunderbird.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (4)

more options

Chosen Solution

If you want a fully clean install, remove the ...appdata\roaming\thunderbird folder, not just the profile folder. And then reinstall. Do you have the old profile? Is the old computer still available? The cleanest install would be to - do fresh install of thunderbird and exit - on old computer, with Thunderbird not running, copy c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird to USB stick - on new computer, copy that thunderbird folder to c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming, and allow the overwrites. - start thunderbird.

more options

Thank you David. I was messing with this all night. Your instructions were far clearer than the one I got from the website. I uninstalled Thunderbird again, deleted the Thunderbird folder in roaming, copied the thunderbird directory from a usb drive, and everything came up perfectly.

more options

Thanks for sharing the good news.  :)

more options

TIP: Now that it's running properly, I encourage periodically doing a backup with same steps: - exit TB - copy the ...alppdata\roaming\thunderbird folder to external drive - if need to ever restore, copy the backup to the ...appdata\roaming folder Most problems we see are because there was no backup .