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i lost my personal Thunderbird profile

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  • Last reply by mogo2

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I am using Windows 10 (with multiple user profiles) I have my Thunderbird installed on D:, and the AppData on D: as well while Windows run on C:. Thunderbird was working fine until yesterday.

This morning, when I start up Thunderbird. It asks me to create new emails. This means that it is not pointing at my old profiles. I searched some of the Q&A, and did the following: 1) found that my old emails and settings are still in tact in D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default/mail 2) but there is no "profile.ini" in my D: 3) further search shows that Profile.ini is in my C://users/phoon/appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles 4) I edited the Profile.ini to [General] StartWithLastProfile=0

[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=d://appdata/thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default Default=1

But, this still does not change anything.

5) I copied the profile.ini with the modified path into my D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles It still does not work.

What else can I do to get my profile, and my emails back? Thanks.

I am using Windows 10 (with multiple user profiles) I have my Thunderbird installed on D:, and the AppData on D: as well while Windows run on C:. Thunderbird was working fine until yesterday. This morning, when I start up Thunderbird. It asks me to create new emails. This means that it is not pointing at my old profiles. I searched some of the Q&A, and did the following: 1) found that my old emails and settings are still in tact in D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default/mail 2) but there is no "profile.ini" in my D: 3) further search shows that Profile.ini is in my C://users/phoon/appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles 4) I edited the Profile.ini to [General] StartWithLastProfile=0 [Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=d://appdata/thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default Default=1 But, this still does not change anything. 5) I copied the profile.ini with the modified path into my D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles It still does not work. What else can I do to get my profile, and my emails back? Thanks.

All Replies (2)

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mogo2 said

I am using Windows 10 (with multiple user profiles)
I have my Thunderbird installed on D:, and the AppData on D: as well while Windows run on C:.
Thunderbird was working fine until yesterday.

This morning, when I start up Thunderbird. It asks me to create new emails. This means that it is not pointing at my old profiles. I searched some of the Q&A, and did the following:
1) found that my old emails and settings are still in tact in D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default/mail
2) but there is no "profile.ini" in my D:
3) further search shows that Profile.ini is in my C://users/phoon/appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles
4) I edited the Profile.ini to
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=0

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=d://appdata/thunderbird/Profiles/nstxxtqc.default
Default=1

But, this still does not change anything.

5) I copied the profile.ini with the modified path into my D:/AppData/Thunderbird/Profiles
It still does not work.

What else can I do to get my profile, and my emails back?
Thanks.

Try:

IsRelative=0 Path=D:\AppData\Thunderbird\Profiles\nstxxtqc.default

profiles.ini must remain in whatever the default system search path is for Users\{user}\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird - and that's possibly still on C:\. I don't "do" Windows 10 and I am not familiar with what now happens when you set the system to relocate user files (specifically the Users folder); anecdotally I hear that some files remain on the system drive and don't (won't?) move to where you the user would like to have them.

I also choose to rename my profiles so I can tell at a glance which one I am using and which may have been machine generated. Obviously if you rename a profile you need to change profiles.ini to keep it all consistent.

Note that within Thunderbird, some pathnames are case-sensitive (e.g. chrome/userChrome.css) and it pays to take great care to be consistent and accurate with them.

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Tried IsRelative=0 Path=D:\AppData\Thunderbird\Profiles\nstxxtqc.default but it still does not work. Thanks for the suggestion.

Can't try anymore. just few days ago, I saw some chat that talks about using the Profile Manager in windows to fix that. I created a new profile, at the same directory as my old mails. Found that it does not work, and deleted it. It deleted my whole folder of old mails.!!! Sometimes, when you are desperate, you can really do stupid things....