Saving and recovering a profile - there has to be a simple way
6 months ago I was given advice on how - manually - to save/backup/copy a profile, and how to recover/copy back the said profile during a windows version upgrade. Either the advice was incomplete, or it just didn't work, and altho I tried it several times it was a disaster. The only way back was to laboriously copy the profile details from another unaffected PC to the affected one. Furious, a c**kup of the 1st order.
Tonite I've read the article on profile manager, and that old fury returned, and this post is the result. The article just doesn't cover this most basic of profile actions - backup and recovery. The best it can do is refer to the way the firefox browser works, but it's still manual. And who wants to be told to refer to a browser when they are concerned with a mail program???
But I've noted and used several times the way the Thunderbird address books work; export and import from a menu option. A profile may be a tad more complex, but the files clearly exist so "menuing it" removes manual actions with it are hazardous to the desired end result and ultimately to the reputation of the product. Why cannot the simple action of backup and restore to safeguard a profile and re-use it on a new install if necessary follow the same process? - On the 'old' program, click menu backup/export profile, select a folder, Ok. - When new install is up, click menu recover/import profile, select folder where it is, choose apply, OK If it necessarily involves a re-start after a new profile is applied, so what is new?? This way there's no manual interpretation involved, just click and use a navigation panel, OK.
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Use the option built into the import export tools addon. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools-ng/?src=ss
The issues are far more complex than you imagine, including the fact that Thunderbird can not import or export address booking in it's native format, only things like CSV and vcard, nor can it import or export one of it's own profiles. This has become immensely more complex with the profile per install and downgrade protections over the past 12 months.
Difficult I can accept. Work to be done - no, it's already been done: the article I mentioned describes it. Confused? I am.
I read the scant details on that NG plug-in: it looks like a mini-explorer just for t'bird, covers a lot more than profiles, which barely rate a mention in the footnote.
The article on (thunderbird) profile manager makes it pretty clear that the one or more profiles exist as separate files. It further focusses on having multiple profiles for several installs of T'Bird (for various reasons) and using those as needed (switching them 'in') to set one as a default for a t'bird start.
I don't see the difference between this and simply saving a profile somewhere (backup), and re-instating it as the default for a new t'bird installation (recovery): a new start. But the methods in the article are all command line oriented. That skill competency has largely died in these days of point and click; so why isn't what profile manager lays out as command line instructions simply included in the t'bird graphics interface??
Maybe you can pass this on to the devs to do.