Ray again. Note I have Thunderfix installed that I used in transfering my profile to a new computer two years ago. I think I can use Thunderfix to setup multiple profiles but I'm not sure and I hesitate to dig around in there and mess things up worse than they are.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_mail_storage_location_%28Thunderbird%29

my providers Tech Support person "removed" the old account

I don't think that was a smart move.

the instruction set for recovering deleted e-mails I found online ... is too cryptic for me to follow.

You found the correct article. Where do you get stuck?

I have Thunderfix installed

I don't know what Thunderfix is or does, but certainly you don't need it in order to transfer a profile or to create new profiles.

christ1 said

my providers Tech Support person "removed" the old account

I don't think that was a smart move.

Agreed, I wish they had just renamed the old account and left it in place.

the instruction set for recovering deleted e-mails I found online ... is too cryptic for me to follow.

You found the correct article. Where do you get stuck?

With step 1 " Start Thunderbird and create a new mail account, using the same email address and server settings as the account you deleted. "

This was originally set up 6 years ago and I don't remember exactly what the original server settings were. Should I trust my memory and hope for the best?

Step 2 " It will create a new account directory with a numeric suffix. For example, if your old mail account directory was pop.gmail.com it will create a pop-gmail-1.com. Use the browse button in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Local directory to specify the old account directory and restart Thunderbird. "

I have no desire to corrupt a functional installation of Thunderbird. There are already three files in that profile that are respectively named pop.gmail.com, pop.gmail.com-1, and pop.gmail.com-2

I have Thunderfix installed

I don't know what Thunderfix is or does, but certainly you don't need it in order to transfer a profile or to create new profiles.

finitarry said

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_mail_storage_location_%28Thunderbird%29

I run into problems with the first paragraph ".........If you want to move your mail (but not the entire contents of the profile folder) to a different location, follow the steps below........"

I don't want to move my mail to a different location, I want to reestablish connection to it in the same installation of Thunderbird on the same machine.

Oh and thank you both for your replies I think we're homing in on a solution.

Your old profile is in one place. Any new profile will be in a different place. Hence you need to work with a profile that's in a different place to the one Thunderbird is at present using.

Your options are to set Thunderbird to look at the old profile, or to copy old stuff over into the new profile

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles

Zenos said

Your old profile is in one place. Any new profile will be in a different place. Hence you need to work with a profile that's in a different place to the one Thunderbird is at present using. Your options are to set Thunderbird to look at the old profile, or to copy old stuff over into the new profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles

Zenos, Yes this is it exactly I'd like to be able to toggle or at least open in my old profile or the new one at will.

If I understand correctly there is currently only one Thunderbird profile on my computer which is "zzd4bs05.default" within which both my new IMAP and my old POP reside.

How do I extract the old e-mail file and get a functional copy of it into the newly created profile or access it where it is for that matter.

Sorry about being so dense this is probably a 45 second issue for you.

This starts getting confusing now. From your OP I understand you're trying to recover a deleted account.

You're now start talking about creating a new profile. Why? For recovering a deleted account one does not have to start messing with profiles. Please confirm what you're trying to achieve.