Can I retrieve a lost Thunderbird profile from an old saved email?
PC crashed. Thunderbird was reinstalled, but a new profile was used. Back-up was not recorded on external hard drive. All local files and address book have been lost. I have a few emails saved on my hard drive. I do not know the old profile code but can this be obtained from an old email. Could this then be used to recuperate my local files and address book ?
All Replies (3)
The "old lost profile" is either on your computer hard disk or it is not. Was the disk replaced following the crash?
If the operating system was restored do you have a Windows.old folder in the root of your C: drive?
Press Windowskey+R and type %appdata% and press enter. Open the Thunderbird folder Now the profiles folder. Is there more than one folder in the profiles folder? (probably both ending in Default)
Okay, I see the folder, now how do I get my new install to recognize it and move it into my new install?
DonFarr said
Okay, I see the folder, now how do I get my new install to recognize it and move it into my new install?
You can replace your "new install" or you and chose to use the old install and hope al the mail can be downloaded from the server again,
Or you can point the import export tools ad-on to the old profile folders and use it to import mail from the old profile to the local folder in the new one
What you can not do is merge an old and new profile into one.
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/