Inadvertently deleted a profile using Profile Manager
and I immediately began scrambling to get it back. I found this somewhere: "Don't Delete Files" is the preferred option because it saves the old profile's folder and allows you to recover the files to a new profile. So that gave me hope because that's what I had clicked (unfortunately, it was right before I saw the cancel button over on the right). That's what I get for being in a hurry I guess.
Anyhow, after 4 days of reading support forums and tons of trial and error, I'm no closer to restoring that profile than when I first started (although I've learned a lot about what does NOT work).
Btw, both my profiles have always been set up as POP3 at Gmail, although if I ever get this current problem sorted out I'll be shopping for a different POP3 provider. But that's another story.
I know how to create a new profile with Profile Manager. And I found the Profiles folders under both Thunderbird folder as well as ThunderbirdOLD folder. Have I been on the right track so far?
In the Thunderbird/Profiles folder, I don't see a folder with the deleted profile name (except the new ones (duds) I've since created ). On the other hand, I don't see the name of the profile that I did NOT delete either, but somehow it seems to be working just fine. Maybe it's the ".default" folder or ".default-release" folder? I've only ever had two profiles and I may have created the non-deleted profile first, so did that one end up being named .default? -shrug- I have no clue.
Anyhow, in the ThunderbirdOLD/Profiles folder, I also see ".default" as well as ".default-release" folders too. But in addition, I'm seeing a ".deletedprofile" named folder. So that's where I originally thought my several dozen email folders with several thousand emails and Address Book etc are hiding. But I've copied all the above mentioned folders into the several new Profiles I've created, on a trial and error basis but so far..... no luck. All I get when I open one is the new set up screen to set up a new pop3 account.... which I can do, but that's just starting from scratch without any of my saved data. I'm running out of ideas.
Where am I going wrong?
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Couldn't wait. Curiosity got the best of me. And it worked out even better than I'd hoped. After floundering around a bit I ended up selecting the whole folder named Profile-1 under C:\Data.. That's the name Thunderbird gave it when it stored it there in C:\Data. Then it asked me to give it a profile name. So not only did I not have to create those 38 folders and move messages to each one, but it even created a completely new profile. So I didn't need one created by the Profile Manager. Do you suppose this is something so totally new it hasn't made it into the online documentation yet? This just blew me away.
I'm still checking it out but so far it appears to be a duplicate of what I thought I'd lost. I haven't tried downloading new messages that have come into Gmail in the last few weeks yet though.
Anyhow, thanks David for all your help and for sticking with me all this time. I really do appreciate it.
Worn out. Going to bed.
It seems you are building this profile outside of thunderbird. My suggestion is to set up one your email accounts there as part of building the new profile. That will give you full access to the profile and your continued efforts to recover the data files. The import menu you referenced is part of the importexport addon.
Whatever the case, I'm almost back on track now. The InportExport add on was a great suggestion. But my biggest frustration was finding where T'bird "stored" the files from the deleted profile.Turned out they weren't in the Thunderbird "Storage" folder. They were in C:\Data along with other program's data files. I just don't know why the documentation isn't clear on that. Also, no mention of the ways the add-on works differently than the "Import" feature in the Tools menu. It makes restoring a deleted profle almost as easy as an "undelete" button would be. Anyhow, thank you so much for your time and suggestions. Especially that add-on. I appreciate it very much.
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