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Sharing a machine, I want a separate private thunderbird e-mail account - the other user already has one - what would be the best way of doing this?

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I would like a separate Thunderbird e-mail account to one already existing on a machine that I need to use. The account needs to be entirely separate, with separate calendar, folders and contacts etc , and password protected from other accounts. Can this be done within one instance of Thunderbird?

Many thanks.

Chris

I would like a separate Thunderbird e-mail account to one already existing on a machine that I need to use. The account needs to be entirely separate, with separate calendar, folders and contacts etc , and password protected from other accounts. Can this be done within one instance of Thunderbird? Many thanks. Chris

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Thanks for this, and it does partly respond to what I want. But is there a way of making the alternative Thunderbird profile private e.g. with a password?

Or is there some other way to do this?

Cheers,

Chris

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The standard way to share a computer and manage privacy is to use User Accounts as provided by the Operating System.

Thunderbird is designed on the assumption that you'll use such facilities to run different users' email accounts.

Each User Account under the Operating System has its own user files and accordingly, its own Thunderbird (and Firefox) profiles.

Whilst Thunderbird can be set to work with multiple profiles, thus providing separation of accounts, it makes no promises about privacy or security. And it doesn't encrypt stored data, so has no way of preventing one user from seeing another's email correspondence.

There are tools (add-ons) that can apply a password to see particular folders within Thunderbird, but I can't think of a way to password protect a profile. The protection offered by the folder passwords is weak, as as said before, your data is not encrypted.