Thunderbird is not reading moved profile
After many issues with Windows 10 anniversary update I moved to a new computer. I have a copy of my old profile in my AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird file, and have copied the profile name into the path in the profiles.ini file. But when I open Thunderbird it still wants me to set up a new account. Much worse, it does not show all my saved email (years and years worth). Oddly enough, it does have my old address book, If I go to Troubleshooting, it shows the correct profile location.
After several re-installs of Windows on the old computer I was able to get Thunderbird to restore everything from the old profile by copying the profile name into the profile.ini file, but it doesn't work now. What is wrong? HELP!
Chosen solution
I hate it when people edit the profiles ini file. It is not as simple as it looks.
First just accept that thuinderbird is not going to use your edits. I really do not know why, probably you did them incorrectly.
Install this add-on in Thunderbird. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/profileswitcher/
This will place a menu entry on your menu. Open profile manager Select to open the profile manger in Normal mode. When Thunderbird restarts with the profile manger tell it you have a new profile and point it to your old profile. Now this is important. You profile folder is the folder with the eight random characters and the . and the profile name. then most common profile name being default. The profile folder is not some sub folder of that which actually has mail in it. Probably the most common problem with moving profile is people picking something other than the true profile folder name as the profile.
Common errors are selecting the folder called profile which contains the profiles and the other is selecting the folder called mail.
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Chosen Solution
I hate it when people edit the profiles ini file. It is not as simple as it looks.
First just accept that thuinderbird is not going to use your edits. I really do not know why, probably you did them incorrectly.
Install this add-on in Thunderbird. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/profileswitcher/
This will place a menu entry on your menu. Open profile manager Select to open the profile manger in Normal mode. When Thunderbird restarts with the profile manger tell it you have a new profile and point it to your old profile. Now this is important. You profile folder is the folder with the eight random characters and the . and the profile name. then most common profile name being default. The profile folder is not some sub folder of that which actually has mail in it. Probably the most common problem with moving profile is people picking something other than the true profile folder name as the profile.
Common errors are selecting the folder called profile which contains the profiles and the other is selecting the folder called mail.
Profile switcher didn't work, either. What did work, though, was to go back to an older profile (by editing profiles.ini). Apparently the newer profile had been corrupted during one of the many system freezes and crashes during the attempted Windows 10 anniversary update. Fortunately I use an automatic backup service, so I had the older profile.