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Laptop crashed and lost Thunderbird user profile and all emails. Need help to recover

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  • Last reply by david

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Laptop crashed and lost Thunderbird user profile and all emails. Need help to recover all emails in Thunderbird

Laptop crashed and lost Thunderbird user profile and all emails. Need help to recover all emails in Thunderbird

Chosen solution

Thank you David. I've recovered my mails!

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The profile is at c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles. The name of the profile is at c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles.ini that is a simple text file and will have name of the profile folder that is in the above mentioned '...thunderbird\profiles' folder. Do a screenshot of the 'Mail' folder and the 'Mail\Local Folders' folder.

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Thanks David for responding but couldn't find `yourid' file in C:\

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Ok, 'yourid' is a shortcode established by Windows when PC first setup. It is unique to each user, so I use brackets to indicate that it will be unique to you. You can find it by clicking to Windows File Explorer, locate the Users directory and view all folders. One of them will be a subset of your name or organization. A way that may work is this: - at desktop, in search box, enter %appdata% and press enter key. - that should take you to the appdata folder and there should be a folder there named Thunderbird - in that folder will be another folder named Profiles - in that folder will be one or more profile folders. looking in each should show you the one with recent dates and would be your profile. - if thunderbird has NOT been reinstalled, in the Thunderbird folder is a file named profiles.ini. It will have the name of the profile you were using. - if what I described is not there, then the messages are lost. if there, then you may be able to recover. OPTION 1: - start thunderbird, click help>troubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'profile folders' and click 'about:profiles' - are multiple profiles shown? Is one of them the one identified by the above-mentioned profiles.ini file? If so, you may be able to 'launch it' . if not, click 'create profile' button in upper left, click next, enter a short name for profile, click 'choose' and locate and select that old profile to see if you can activate it. If so, your messages are there. - if that doesn't work, then you're off to do OPTION 2: - exit thunderbird if running - at this point you have found the profile, but it is corrupted. In windows file explorer, locate the Mail folder in corrupted profile and then select the account folder there. That will show message folders, such as inbox, inbox.msf, etc. Also, see the Mail\Local Folders for any other message folders. COPY all desired folders (but not the msf ones) and store in the Mail\Local Folders folder of the newer profile. - restart thunderbird and messages should be there.

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Found my profile when typed 'Thunderbird. Found mail inbox, out box , etc in folder 'mail.bigpong.com' which is my mail box.

How to restore my previous users profile in Thunderbird.

After reboot , my user profile is in a different profile ..c:\Users\TEMP.LAPTOP- -AppData\Local

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Found my profile when typed 'Thunderbird. Found mail inbox, out box , etc in folder 'mail.bigpong.com' which is my mail box.

How to restore my previous users profile in Thunderbird.

After reboot , my user profile is in a different profile ..c:\Users\TEMP.LAPTOP- -AppData\Local

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  1. start thunderbird
  2. click help>troubleshootinginformation
  3. scroll down left side to 'profiles' - click 'about:profiles'
  4. click 'create profile' in upper left
  5. click 'next'
  6. enter a shortname, such as MYPROFILE
  7. then click the 'choose' button to locate and select the found profile
  8. finish and see if thunderbird uses the profile

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Chosen Solution

Thank you David. I've recovered my mails!

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SUPER! You're very welcome. :)

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