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restoring thunderbird with mozbackup hangs at basically no progress

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I am trying to restore my thunderbird from a backup file I created yesterday and stored on a desktop computer I use for, among other things, a file server. I open thunderbird first and let it create a profile it calls "Default", as I did before. However, in mozbackup(freshly installed) when I try to restore to thunderbird, it doesn't show any profile to restore to....I restarted mozbackup more than once and I make sure thunderbird is closed before trying to restore, nut still no progress shows when restoring and I don't even see the profile when initiating the restore....please help - what should I do? I tried mozilla help to try to find an answer, and all I saw was that the backup is basically just a zipfil I could open manually and copy the files myself., but I'm confused as to why mozbakup's restore isn't working....any ideas would be greatly appreciated so I don't lose my email history I've saved over the years.....I'm not opposed to opening my backup file as a zipfile and manually restoring if that's the only option. But, I was counting on mozbackup as I transitioned to this new(used, but a friend gave it to me) running windows 10, as was my old laptop/netbook... Thanks much in advance for any ideas...incidentally I can access my gmail online for any emails/suggestions I get, so I'm good there.....I'm also trying to restore as 'imap'...but is the answer maybe that it's actually a pop3 setup? My memory says it was imap, but I have to admit I could be mistaken, given the problem I'm having....maybe I should try the pop restore...I think I'll try that and maybe make sure the "Default" profile I created when running thunderbird the first time was also imap, but I'm pretty sure it was...is this what you'll see if there's a mismatch between the 'Default' account type and the mozbackup? Maybe I've just answered my own question....is there any way, for that matter, to determine in gmail online if it is setup for pop3 vs imap? Maybe I'm crawling up the wrong tree...again...thanks in advance! -Al

I am trying to restore my thunderbird from a backup file I created yesterday and stored on a desktop computer I use for, among other things, a file server. I open thunderbird first and let it create a profile it calls "Default", as I did before. However, in mozbackup(freshly installed) when I try to restore to thunderbird, it doesn't show any profile to restore to....I restarted mozbackup more than once and I make sure thunderbird is closed before trying to restore, nut still no progress shows when restoring and I don't even see the profile when initiating the restore....please help - what should I do? I tried mozilla help to try to find an answer, and all I saw was that the backup is basically just a zipfil I could open manually and copy the files myself., but I'm confused as to why mozbakup's restore isn't working....any ideas would be greatly appreciated so I don't lose my email history I've saved over the years.....I'm not opposed to opening my backup file as a zipfile and manually restoring if that's the only option. But, I was counting on mozbackup as I transitioned to this new(used, but a friend gave it to me) running windows 10, as was my old laptop/netbook... Thanks much in advance for any ideas...incidentally I can access my gmail online for any emails/suggestions I get, so I'm good there.....I'm also trying to restore as 'imap'...but is the answer maybe that it's actually a pop3 setup? My memory says it was imap, but I have to admit I could be mistaken, given the problem I'm having....maybe I should try the pop restore...I think I'll try that and maybe make sure the "Default" profile I created when running thunderbird the first time was also imap, but I'm pretty sure it was...is this what you'll see if there's a mismatch between the 'Default' account type and the mozbackup? Maybe I've just answered my own question....is there any way, for that matter, to determine in gmail online if it is setup for pop3 vs imap? Maybe I'm crawling up the wrong tree...again...thanks in advance! -Al

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Update....I with draw the question. After I finished typing the question, I looked back at thunderbird(mozbackup was still running) and my emails were all there...now I'm confused, though, to be honest...any thoughts as to what might have happened? AQgain, thanks!

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sorry for the typo.....I'm disabled and forced to type 10handed and it's never perfect!

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MozBackup has been abandoned by its developer. I have no idea how well it copes with Thunderbird profiles now.

The good news is that the file it produces is a zip file, but with another extension. Make a copy of your backup file, rename it with a .zip extension and then extract it using the usual tools. Now you can restore from it in all the usual ways.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data

And please try the return key now and then. Your solid block of text is very hard to read.

But your last post makes all this redundant. ;-)

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