I am concerned about your re-format AFTER upgrading to Win10. Did you back up your profile before you started the upgrade? Did you reinstall Thunderbird? You may have copied the new empty profile and not your old one with all your preferences and messages. It may still be on the hard drive if you only refreshed windows 10. If I recall correctly during my Win10 upgrade, I was offered options to keep my files, or to do a clean install which I believe would reformat the hard drive and delete all my old files. I kept my old files and everything worked fine. Do you recall whether you were offered such a choice?

TB-38.3 Win10-PC

Did you choose one of the options for Windows 10 preserving your data (e.g., reset, refresh, or possibly similar terms)? You can check for a folder named

C:\Windows.old\Users\your-username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird

If you do not immediately see AppData, make sure Windows shows hidden files and folders. To change that setting, see this article (hopefully it's similar in Windows 10): http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Can you find it? If so, great. Hopefully a Thunderbird expert can guide you in moving your old files to the correct new location.

Thanks for your answers!

gild: I SUPPOSEDLY backed up the old profile, but somehow I either overwrote it or simply backed up the wrong thing. I know this because indeed I have a 2010 profile backed up and there are all the appropriate files: mail, address book, etc.

I did NOT back up before the upgrade. I backed up afterwards, reformatted, reinstalled Tbrd, and I found the new profile with ease which I was supposed to replace and I did that but the old one as mentioned above didn't work.

If I had done only the upgrade it would indeed still be there, and indeed Tbird was fine after the upgrade. The problem was the reformatting, where I backed up the wrong thing (or whatever),.

So I upgraded. Then afterwards I reformatted.

jsher2000...

When I recovered my backup, I did choose to erase the old files on the computer, but not to totally clean the computer (an option for when you want to throw away the computer and leave no data).

So then I had to reinstall Tbird, which comes with a new profile, which I have to replace with the old profile. Finding the new profile was no problem. The problem is that the old profile which I copied is evidently no good for whatever reason. (I copied the wrong thing?)

In my backup disc I can see my documents, what I can't see are the files which you refer to (in the backup), and I assume they're somewhere in the zipped files which Windows 10 created. Maybe. Or not.

To clarify in C:/ of my newly reformatted computer I do find the new profile. But I have no idea where it might be in my backup disc.

Thanks again!

In your backup, do you the profile folder from:

C:\Users\your-username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird

Hi jscher2000

Nope, there's no C:/ at all, but remember, the backup files are zipped files (I guess)-- which Windows did. I did go ahead and just search for AppData just in case it was hidden somewhere in the actual file folders that were not zipped.... Also, I have a Windows Image File from June, 2015, which is also zipped (or whatever it is) for just a normal backup in case of a crash (as opposed to a reformatting). So maybe something useful could be found there, although that was in Windows 7. So again, don't know what to do.

I guess search using some of the unique file names found in a Thunderbird profile folder. This article lists a bunch of them, although some may be shared with Firefox: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_folders_in_the_profile_-_Thunderbird

Thanks for the idea and I just tried that with one. Will try another few, but will they find them if they're in a zip file? (or whatever mechanics Windows uses to compress them)

I am not familiar with the Windows Backup and Restore in recent years. I don't know how you get a list of what is inside the backup without starting up the restore program so you can select specific files. But I think you already did the restore?

My manually backed up files appeared from 2010 (but then I knew they were there already). And that would certainly be better than nothing!

Yep, already did the restore... and there's a list of files that are under "file history" those I can see and pick from. then there's another group which is called "backup set" and then "backup files" and they are a group of 15 compressed/zipped files. And I'm guessing that is where the profile might be... if it doesn't just get erased. I keep trying the AppData route thinking a miracle will occur but it just doesn't seem to be there. Thanks again

Do you have a Zip program to view the archives? If you need a free one, you could try 7-zip: http://www.7-zip.org/

If they aren't Zip archives, you might hit up a Windows 10 forum for advice on opening them.

did you perhaps backup Appdata\Local instead of Appdata\remote, therefore resulting in no backup.

Jscher2000 of course! such a basic idea which never occurred to me (well I guess I was thinking they weren't ordinary zip files--- but they are). And thank you very much for the link... with the reformat I don't have a program.

Will try this tomorrow. My laptop battery has about died and being off-grid I try to shut down my non-essentials until the daylight hours.

I'm thinking this should either do the trick or I can just give up and use the 2010 profile.

Will let you know tomorrow. Thanks!

Matt --- could very well be, I really don't know at this point!

jscher2000---- I FOUND IT!!! YEA! now just to do it right this time... I shall re-read instructions...

A slight complication.... the profile folder and file are spread over 4 zipped files. I suppose I should unzip them to the same destination folder and they will unite all by themselves?

It worked! they're back! It took me FOREVER -- unable to follow instructions, finally copied the profile folder manually and hit default in the profile manager and voilá! all my mail folders back from years and years back... as well as my address book. I am a happý camper, thank you ladies and gentlemen for sticking with me!