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upgrade created new profile. How to get my old one back

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by geotanty

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An upgrade created a new profile. I need my old one back. I see an email folder with all of the now missing folders. But how do I change to that profile or modify my current profile to include the folders shown in roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\1dext3ey.default\mail?

Thanks

George

An upgrade created a new profile. I need my old one back. I see an email folder with all of the now missing folders. But how do I change to that profile or modify my current profile to include the folders shown in roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\1dext3ey.default\mail? Thanks George

Chosen solution

Matt

Rebuilt all missing folders under Local Folders. Decided would probably not hear again from Toad Hall regarding recovering profile so moved all folders and subfolders up to primary account name.

Lot of work and very slow as you mentioned, but all back to normal.

Thank you for your help and perseverance.

George

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All Replies (15)

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your profile is roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\1dext3ey.default

when you click on the show folder button in troubleshooting on the help menu, does it go to another folder?

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Matt

It shows that 1dext folder and "mail" folder is highlighted. Within the "mail" folder are

Local Folders Local Folders -1 mail.earthlink.net -1 mail.earthlink.net -2 mail.earthlink.net -3 mail.earthlink.net -4 pop.earthlink.net smart mailboxes

Those way old other mail subfolders are from a previous employee many years ago

the mail.earthlink.net without a number after it shows all of my folders that I'm missing

Thanks

George

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Go back to that profile folder Close Thunderbird Delete the following files.

xulstore.json foldertree.json.

if there are others with a number appended, delete those as well.

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Matt

Deleted those two and Panacea as well. Rebooted Thunderbird and old folders and emails still missing. I can still see them all in mail.earthlink.net folder.

Thanks

George

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in roaming\Thunderbird\ you will find a profiles.ini file. Open it in notepad and past the contents as a reply here on the forum.

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Matt

My apologies for the two threads on the same topic. I forgot to bookmark the first one and so went to "questions" in my profile and didn't see it and thought it wasn't there so asked it a second time. Contents of profiles.ini is

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/1dxet3ey.default


Thanks

George

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Just a quick comment. Unless you posted under a different user name I do not see any other current question threads.

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Same username but I had posted two questions. Matt locked the other so you only see one.

Sorry for the confusion

George

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re :the mail.earthlink.net without a number after it shows all of my folders that I'm missing

According to your info , that account does not exist. all the mail.earthlink.net have a number Perhaps you are referring to pop.earthlink.net. which has no number?

Can you confirm the following:

Right click on mail account name in left Folder Pane and select 'Settings' click on 'Server Settings' for that POP account look bottom right for 'Local Directory' left click in the Local directory text box to put cursor at the start. Now left click and hold down and move cursor to far right to highlight all the text - note not all will be visible so make sure you do highlight all of it.

Right click on highlighted text and paste info into this forum.

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Toad Hall

Well I can't do the first part right now because in an attempt to fix this problem I deleted and reinstalled Thunderbird. It then asked me to set up an account again and haven't done that yet so can't tell you what that settings info is.

However, looking in roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles I see a folder called mail.earthlink.net and opening that up, there is a folder named inbox.sbd and opening that up I see my folders from before the upgrade and the largest file is over 3 Gb and that's where most of my important emails are stored. So why can't I set up Thunderbird to go to those folders and not new, empty ones?

Thanks for your response though, I'm getting worried I'll never be able to get those back and they're important to my little one man business.

Regards,

George

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geotanty said

I'm getting worried I'll never be able to get those back and they're important to my little one man business.

If your mail exists and is not corrupted I doubt you have lost anything. having a 3Gb file is really a good indication that all is good. It is just a matter of making it work like it should.

This is not a solution. But it might make you feel better about how lost your mail is. Copy that SDB folder and everything under it to your current profile (the one with no accounts. COPY. I am not sure Toad is done trying to get your old profile up and running again, so lets not actually move anything.

Go to the help menu in Thunderbird, open the troubleshooting tab and Press the show profile folder button. Close Thunderbird

In the windows explorer that opens, open the "mail" folder. Now open the "local folders" folder Paste the SDB file into that location. (this will include your 3Gb file so should be relatively slow) Delete the files xulstore.json and foldertree.json Restart Thunderbird.

Under local folders you should see your folders (I hope)

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Matt

I was hoping too. But no luck. I tried several variations of your suggestion to no avail. There are two accounts shown in the main screen - local folders and the folder that usually has all of the subfolders and the name on that one is the email address associated with it. So tried copying to several diff places and deleting the two files you mentioned and nothing showing under either account.

If you or Toad Hall have any other suggestions, please let me know. It's so frustrating seeing a 10Gb folder with all my templates and Archives and it would seem like something so simple to point my current settings towards that folder. I also can't understand how this doesn't happen to more users since it is all the result of an upgrade.

Thanks for your help

George

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yep always another idea... just some of them are not as good as others.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Install the add-on. Create a folder in "Local Folders". Right click it and select importExport Select import MBOX file Select the folder with the msf files in it. (They are only indexes, but make a good pointer to where actual mail is stored.)

Repeat for each file.

I was reluctant to do this earlier as it can be very slow on large files. you may have to select to continue script multiple times to get the largest files imported.

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Matt

Might be a glimmer of hope. I created a folder in Local and got the biggest email folder to appear with 4900 emails in it. Didn't think it worked the first time so actually got two. When I give an instruction it says Thunderbird is not responding but it's actually just busy. So deleted the second copy and that took a while. Then went to move that folder up to the first account which is the email address she uses. Now it's cranking and not responding. But I'll check back later and see and let you know

Thanks

George

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Chosen Solution

Matt

Rebuilt all missing folders under Local Folders. Decided would probably not hear again from Toad Hall regarding recovering profile so moved all folders and subfolders up to primary account name.

Lot of work and very slow as you mentioned, but all back to normal.

Thank you for your help and perseverance.

George