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How can I prevent deleted folders from re-appearing in Thunderbird when I backup from my desktop and restore to my laptop?

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I use Thunderbird on my desktop (DT) at home and when I travel I use mozbackup to backup Thunderbird and restore it to my laptop (LT). This works fine except that folders that I delete or move get "restored" when I restore the backup.

This happens even if I rename my Thunderbird folder (e.g. C:\Users\TnD\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\t4h18qqw.default\Mail\Local Folders) on my DT, and do the restore so it seems that the old email folder still exists somehow even though it does not show as an email folder.

For example I had an old email account and its folder name was "Scat". I delete that from my DT email. I then do a mozbackup, and restore that on my LT. "Scat" now shows up. This also happens for sub folders. For example mail from Stefan I put in a folder called Stefan. I moved this folder to a subfolder (say Old), then do my backup/restore and Stefan now shows up in two places.

Is this a bug in Thunderbird or do I need to re-synchronize before I do my backup or are there other steps I can take?

I use Thunderbird on my desktop (DT) at home and when I travel I use mozbackup to backup Thunderbird and restore it to my laptop (LT). This works fine except that folders that I delete or move get "restored" when I restore the backup. This happens even if I rename my Thunderbird folder (e.g. C:\Users\TnD\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\t4h18qqw.default\Mail\Local Folders) on my DT, and do the restore so it seems that the old email folder still exists somehow even though it does not show as an email folder. For example I had an old email account and its folder name was "Scat". I delete that from my DT email. I then do a mozbackup, and restore that on my LT. "Scat" now shows up. This also happens for sub folders. For example mail from Stefan I put in a folder called Stefan. I moved this folder to a subfolder (say Old), then do my backup/restore and Stefan now shows up in two places. Is this a bug in Thunderbird or do I need to re-synchronize before I do my backup or are there other steps I can take?

All Replies (1)

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You might want to rethink using Mozbackup. Go to his site and read the caution in the orange banner. http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com

Here are the instructions for backing up and restoring your profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data