Removing accounts shouldn't affect the address books, which are defined for all accounts in a profile. But if you created a new profile, then you can copy abook.sqlite and history.sqlite from the old profile to the new. If you have just one profile folder and the contacts are missing, the method is a bit different.

Can you clarify what a profile is in TB as opposed to an account?

is a profile the same as an identity?

A profile folder contains all account data, address books, calendars, add-ons etc. A profile can have several accounts, and an account can have several identities. Most users have a single profile listed in Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles, but additional profiles can be created deliberately or accidentally. In your case, I suspect the latter, since adding and removing accounts doesn't affect address books.

ok, I found a number of profiles on TB. The default one is old from when I imported my entire TB account to a new laptop (this laptop). I'm not sure how to figure out which one to use and which one contains my most recent address book. Any suggestions? See screen shots.

Thanks and have a good night.

most recent being the one with allll my addresses I had in my pop acct.

Open the profile folder of the one with your contacts and copy abook.sqlite and history.sqlite into the current profile folder. Close TB while doing this and back up the existing sqlite files before overwriting them.

If instead of sqlite files the source profile has abook.mab and history.mab (pre-78 format), copy them into the current profile and move the existing abook.sqlite and history.sqlite to a backup folder.

How do I figure out which profile has my contacts from the pop acct? I can only view the address book file in the default (active) profile. But can't see the other profiles addresses . Maybe this is over my head but I can give it one more shot.

From about:profiles, you can launch other profiles. Or, open a profile folder (Root Directory, Open Folder) and look at the date and size of the abook or history file. The most recent one or the largest is probably the one to coopy to the current profile. If you launch a profile, open Address Book to see the contacts. If you're unsure at copying mab or sqlite files, an address book can be exported to LDIF format and then imported to TB running the current profile (Tools in Address Book).