Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Profile moved to OneDrive still depends on original %appdata% profile

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by robert220

more options

I'm struggling with moving my TB profile to OneDrive to provide cloud-based backup/mirroring. I have no interest in sharing the profile with additional devices.

I created a new profile ("CloudBackup") and have copied the contents of %appdata%\Thunderbird\ to C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Documents\Thunderbird\ and finally got TB to work again with a bit of tweaking of profiles.ini in the OneDrive copy. But there still seems to be a dependency on the old %appdata% profiles.ini. If I rename %appdata%\Thunderbird to %appdata%\Thunderbird_old to disable it, TB wants me to recreate all the data and structure (and locally saved emails -- lots of them). I suspect a problem in my new OneDrive\...\profiles.ini file, which follows:

[Install8216C80C92C4E828] Default=Profiles/ivk5n2cs.default Locked=1

[Profile1] Name=CloudBackup IsRelative=0 Path=C:\Users\rober\OneDrive\Documents\Thunderbird\Profiles\ivk5n2cs.default Default=1

[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/ivk5n2cs.default

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2

Can anyone help me correct my profiles.ini file, or whatever else may be causing my problem?

I'm struggling with moving my TB profile to OneDrive to provide cloud-based backup/mirroring. I have no interest in sharing the profile with additional devices. I created a new profile ("CloudBackup") and have copied the contents of %appdata%\Thunderbird\ to C:\Users\myname\OneDrive\Documents\Thunderbird\ and finally got TB to work again with a bit of tweaking of profiles.ini in the OneDrive copy. But there still seems to be a dependency on the old %appdata% profiles.ini. If I rename %appdata%\Thunderbird to %appdata%\Thunderbird_old to disable it, TB wants me to recreate all the data and structure (and locally saved emails -- lots of them). I suspect a problem in my new OneDrive\...\profiles.ini file, which follows: ****************************************************************************** [Install8216C80C92C4E828] Default=Profiles/ivk5n2cs.default Locked=1 [Profile1] Name=CloudBackup IsRelative=0 Path=C:\Users\rober\OneDrive\Documents\Thunderbird\Profiles\ivk5n2cs.default Default=1 [Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/ivk5n2cs.default [General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2 ****************************************************************************** Can anyone help me correct my profiles.ini file, or whatever else may be causing my problem?

Chosen solution

If you want data corruption and ongoing issues, continue with the move. It will end in data loss and tears is my view. As a backup it will be totally unreliable and quite possible resulting in your profile being corrupted to the point of being unrecoverable. Cloud synced storage locations are asking for trouble.

However, just to point out the obvious you are pointing to a location on your C: drive for the "CloudBackup" profile, so of course it will be required.

Thunderbird is hard coded to look in the %appdata%\Thunderbird folder to locate the profile ini file. You can not relocate it.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

If you want data corruption and ongoing issues, continue with the move. It will end in data loss and tears is my view. As a backup it will be totally unreliable and quite possible resulting in your profile being corrupted to the point of being unrecoverable. Cloud synced storage locations are asking for trouble.

However, just to point out the obvious you are pointing to a location on your C: drive for the "CloudBackup" profile, so of course it will be required.

Thunderbird is hard coded to look in the %appdata%\Thunderbird folder to locate the profile ini file. You can not relocate it.

more options

Matt's third paragraph is the key. TB looks in %appdata%\Thunderbird for both profiles.ini and installs.ini, but it doesn't require that the Profiles folder/directory be located there. So \Profiles\ can be moved pretty much wherever one likes; but profiles.ini must point to it appropriately.