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

How can I ensure that Thunderbird creates a default profile when it loads?

more options

I have bought a new laptop, which I suspect might be faulty. I loaded Thunderbird, but made a mess of transferring data to the profile and in the process lost the profile. I have since found how to do it well and have done it on Firefox. I thought that if I uninstalled TB and then re-installed it, it would automatically produce a default profile. But it just says that it can't find a profile, and refuses to load, which means I can't use the Profile Manager to make one. Is there some way to persuade TB to produce a profile, or have I just got a dodgy laptop?

I have bought a new laptop, which I suspect might be faulty. I loaded Thunderbird, but made a mess of transferring data to the profile and in the process lost the profile. I have since found how to do it well and have done it on Firefox. I thought that if I uninstalled TB and then re-installed it, it would automatically produce a default profile. But it just says that it can't find a profile, and refuses to load, which means I can't use the Profile Manager to make one. Is there some way to persuade TB to produce a profile, or have I just got a dodgy laptop?

Valgt løsning

I would guess that Thunderbird has found part of a profile, but can't load it completely and so complains.

The answer would be to delete (or move) the incomplete profile, forcing Thunderbird to create a new one.

I am surprised that if you start Thunderbird with the profile manager, using the -p command line switch, that it doesn't allow you to start afresh with a new profile.

You could go to where your profile lives, delete everything and then restart Thunderbird. You need to remove both the file profiles.ini and the folder Profiles.

Les dette svaret i sammenhengen 👍 2

All Replies (2)

more options

Valgt løsning

I would guess that Thunderbird has found part of a profile, but can't load it completely and so complains.

The answer would be to delete (or move) the incomplete profile, forcing Thunderbird to create a new one.

I am surprised that if you start Thunderbird with the profile manager, using the -p command line switch, that it doesn't allow you to start afresh with a new profile.

You could go to where your profile lives, delete everything and then restart Thunderbird. You need to remove both the file profiles.ini and the folder Profiles.

more options

Many thanks! I had removed the default profile, but not the folder. Your last sentence solved the problem. I thought there might be a simple answer somewhere. Thanks again for your time and help. Martin