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I had to re-install Windows - having trouble getting the old/existing profile to show all the emails I had

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  • Last reply by rkhanso

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I had to re-install windows. I have multiple drives in my computer and I copied the entire C: drive to another drive in the PC. I thought when I re-installed Thunderbird, I could just point the email accounts to the profile located on the different drive.....but it's not working.

I had multiple accounts configured in Thunderbird - about 6 email accounts, but just a single profile. I had multiple folders created for the organizing the email locally. So, I'm guessing there should be both a local and roaming profile with the same name? I checked my mail server web interface and currently there are about 105 emails on it. I know there were at least 500 total emails in the Thunderbird inboxes. I'm trying to restore those older emails, as well as the local folders - but am not having any luck.

Anyway, with all the attempts I've made to get all my email back, I think Thunderbird has created new folders and it's getting really complicated now. I'm not sure how to sort all this out. I do know the profile name that I used before, and when I search my computer on the profile name, it finds 22,000+ items. I'm still not able to get them all restored back into Thunderbird.

Another odd thing is: in the search results for the profile name, the items are shown in the results and it has a Thunderbird icon next to them and says it's a Thunderbird Document...but when I double-click one of them, it won't open up in Thunderbird. Nothing happens when I double-click them. Could this be a Thunderbird version problem/conflict? I thought my Old Thunderbird was up-to-date.

I'm not sure where to start to give you a hint how to help. Sorry.

Any ideas?

I had to re-install windows. I have multiple drives in my computer and I copied the entire C: drive to another drive in the PC. I thought when I re-installed Thunderbird, I could just point the email accounts to the profile located on the different drive.....but it's not working. I had multiple accounts configured in Thunderbird - about 6 email accounts, but just a single profile. I had multiple folders created for the organizing the email locally. So, I'm guessing there should be both a local and roaming profile with the same name? I checked my mail server web interface and currently there are about 105 emails on it. I know there were at least 500 total emails in the Thunderbird inboxes. I'm trying to restore those older emails, as well as the local folders - but am not having any luck. Anyway, with all the attempts I've made to get all my email back, I think Thunderbird has created new folders and it's getting really complicated now. I'm not sure how to sort all this out. I do know the profile name that I used before, and when I search my computer on the profile name, it finds 22,000+ items. I'm still not able to get them all restored back into Thunderbird. Another odd thing is: in the search results for the profile name, the items are shown in the results and it has a Thunderbird icon next to them and says it's a Thunderbird Document...but when I double-click one of them, it won't open up in Thunderbird. Nothing happens when I double-click them. Could this be a Thunderbird version problem/conflict? I thought my Old Thunderbird was up-to-date. I'm not sure where to start to give you a hint how to help. Sorry. Any ideas?

All Replies (4)

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I thought when I re-installed Thunderbird, I could just point the email accounts to the profile located on the different drive

I'm not sure what that means. If it means you did mess with the 'Local Directory' setting, you just made things worse. Reverse those changes.

Then use the Profile Manager to point Thunderbird to your profile on the different drive. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder_-_Thunderbird#Use_the_Profile_Manager_to_move_your_profile

Modified by christ1

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christ1 said

I thought when I re-installed Thunderbird, I could just point the email accounts to the profile located on the different drive

I'm not sure what that means. If it means you did mess with the 'Local Directory' setting, you just made things worse. Reverse those changes.

Then use the Profile Manager to point Thunderbird to your profile on the different drive. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder_-_Thunderbird#Use_the_Profile_Manager_to_move_your_profile

Whenever I try to run the profile manager, all it does is start up Thunderbird. I don't get the profilemanager window to show up.

I'm not sure what changes have been made because it appears that Thunderbird did some of the folder creation on it's own when I added an account, but then tried to adjust the location of the profile from the one it just created to the one I wanted it to use.

I can't get the profile manager to run. I'm using Windows 7.

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Chosen Solution

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Awesome. Everything is back. Thanks a million.