How to make Thunderbird use a profile that's not listed in `about:profiles` (again)?
I have Thunderbird installed [via Flatpak](https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird) and suddenly it's not recognizing the profile that contains the email accounts. When launching it is showing the welcome wizard instead.
The file system contains quite a few profiles though:
``` $ cd ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/cache/thunderbird $ du -h --max-depth=1 6.8M ./i58nuv2e.default-release-1 813M ./r77u2ylw.default 6.7M ./w92uxxz8.default-release 0 ./jncleef4.default 6.5M ./fbs6wcvl.default-release 0 ./lz1kt9ot.default 6.9M ./tv1kaebo.default-release 0 ./7f6s4la8.default 839M . ```
but `about:profiles` shows only `tv1kaebo.default-release` and `7f6s4la8.default`.
I'm pretty sure that I didn't do anything but updating the Flatpak and I definitely didn't change any Thunderbird settings or anything in its data directories.
The correct profile is `r77u2ylw.default` (its directory size is 813M while the others are less than 7M).
Hence I'd like to know how can I make Thunderbird use that profile and avoid that issue happening again?
- PS:** And what's the best way of cleaning up profiles, since I only need one profile anyway? The Thunderbird UI doesn't even recognise all of them, so would be deleting them sufficient?
Chosen solution
Okay, nevermind: the problem was caused by a Flatpak change ( https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/security/advisories/GHSA-7hgv-f2j8-xw87 ).
I had my Thunderbird directory symlinked and this isn't allowed anymore. Instead one needs to use a mount bind now.
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I think this may work:
- click help>troubleshootinginformation
- scroll down to 'profiles' and click 'about:profile'
- click the 'create new profile' button
- click next.
- enter a shortcut name and use the 'choose' button to locate and select your preferring profile, click finish and then activate it. (This works for Windows, so I hope it works for you.)
Thank you for the fast answer. When I do that, I'm seeing the message "This profile is in use in another application and it cannot be deleted."
And I don't have the buttons that would allow me to use it. I can only rename it.
I also restarted to make sure that no other application could use that directory, but it didn't help.
have you tried copying that profile to have a unique one? My inference is that Flatpak installs to a different location than prior version of Thunderbird. If nothing works, you can always copy the contents from the desired profile to the active one.
Chosen Solution
Okay, nevermind: the problem was caused by a Flatpak change ( https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/security/advisories/GHSA-7hgv-f2j8-xw87 ).
I had my Thunderbird directory symlinked and this isn't allowed anymore. Instead one needs to use a mount bind now.
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