Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from Dec 2–8 to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 134 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

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

Strange behaviour when copying profile

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by AgnesRM

more options

I just upgraded to MacOS "Catalina" and wanted to make a backup of my default "user Profile" for Thunderbird 60.9.0.

As I have always done in the past, I went into Profile Manager, created a new profile, and then went into the Library, copied all the files from the old profile folder into the new one.

But now, when I launch Thunderbird under the new profile, I find it has created a bunch of new folders such as "inbox-1", "sent-1", etc. instead of just "inbox", "sent"... And some of my files are in "inbox-1", "sent-1" while others stayed in "inbox", etc. After opening and closing Thunderbird a few times, resetting and restarting, and trying it twice with different methods of "copying all the files" to the new profile folder (to make sure I wasn't just accidentally skipping a file during the transfer, or something), I just opened Thunderbird again under the new profile, and all these folders have disappeared completely... (even my "archive" folders, and my inbox's folder structure...) it's weird...

Launching into the 'old' profile somehow still gives me the correct set of folders that I always had (thank God!)... but this new profile behaves strangely.

I think this is a bug, and I think it might have something to do with my having 'upgraded' to Catalina.

Thanks for your ideas...

I just upgraded to MacOS "Catalina" and wanted to make a backup of my default "user Profile" for Thunderbird 60.9.0. As I have always done in the past, I went into Profile Manager, created a new profile, and then went into the Library, copied all the files from the old profile folder into the new one. But now, when I launch Thunderbird under the new profile, I find it has created a bunch of new folders such as "inbox-1", "sent-1", etc. instead of just "inbox", "sent"... And some of my files are in "inbox-1", "sent-1" while others stayed in "inbox", etc. After opening and closing Thunderbird a few times, resetting and restarting, and trying it twice with different methods of "copying all the files" to the new profile folder (to make sure I wasn't just accidentally skipping a file during the transfer, or something), I just opened Thunderbird again under the new profile, and all these folders have disappeared completely... (even my "archive" folders, and my inbox's folder structure...) it's weird... Launching into the 'old' profile somehow still gives me the correct set of folders that I always had (thank God!)... but this new profile behaves strangely. I think this is a bug, and I think it might have something to do with my having 'upgraded' to Catalina. Thanks for your ideas...

All Replies (1)

more options

HI I have seen a number of issues with Catalina recently on this list. I am not familiar with Apple myself, but I think your conclusion that Catalina upgrade introduced some issues may be right. Here is a useful resource, courtesy of SeaMac http://osxdaily.com/2019/10/09/troubleshooting-macos-catalina-problems/ and if you Google Catalina issues you will find more. If your Tbird is 32 bit, for example, it will not work under Catalina. Best wishes, Agnes