Hello,

Certain Thunderbird problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove Thunderbird's program files and then reinstall Thunderbird. Please follow these steps:

1. Download the latest version of Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ and save the setup file to your computer.
2. After the download is complete, close all Thunderbird windows (Click Exit/Quit from the menu button on the right).
3. Delete the Thunderbird installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
   • Windows:
     • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\
     • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\
   • Mac: Delete Thunderbird from the Applications folder.
   • Linux: If you installed Thunderbird with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Installing Thunderbird on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Thunderbird Download Page, simply remove the folder thunderbird in your home directory.
4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Thunderbird:
   1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
   2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to open Thunderbird after clicking the Finish button.

WARNING: Do not run Thunderbird's uninstaller or use a third party remover as part of this process, because that could permanently delete your Thunderbird data, including but not limited to, extensions, emails, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device!

Please report back to see if this helped you!

Thank you.

This gives me the same result. The folders are in the Profile but do not appear in the Tbird pane.

Your instructions said to delete the installation folder found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\ . There was no such folder in there so I deleted the entire Thunderbird folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\ .

When I reinstalled Tbird the same left window appears but when I try to open the Mail folder there is nothing there despite all the files being seen in the Application data.

I have the old files backed up but just inserting them into the Profile does not change anything either as far as I can see.

This gives me the same result. The folders are in the Profile but do not appear in the Tbird pane.

Your instructions said to delete the installation folder found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\ . There was no such folder in there so I deleted the entire Thunderbird folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\ .

When I reinstalled Tbird the same left window appears but when I try to open the Mail folder there is nothing there despite all the files being seen in the Application data.

I have the old files backed up but just inserting them into the Profile does not change anything either as far as I can see.

Reinstalling Thunderbird would not have any effect and rarely is the fix to most issues.

Let's start at the beginning and walk through process.

Upgraded OS. Installed Thunderbird. Run Thunderbird the first time to create a default profile folder name. Did not create accounts because you are importing the old profile. Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show folders' to see contents of your new profile folder name folder. It would located: C:\Users\Windows user name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\Profile folder name\

Closed Thunderbird. Then.... You said inserted my old profile - You should have doen this..... copy paste the 'Contents' of the backup 'profile folder name' folder into the new default profile folder name overwriting all the contents.

Confirm you copy pasted into the correct AppData/Roaming location. Can you please explain precisely what you did?

Did you copy paste your 'profile folder name' folder (usually called 'xxxxxxxx.default' where x's are letters and numbers) directly into the 'Profiles' folder overwriting the new default one? If you did this and did not fix the 'profiles.ini' file to show the alteration to profile folder name then TB will not pick it up.

OR Did you copy paste your 'profile folder name' folder (usually called 'xxxxxxxx.default' where x's are letters and numbers) directly into the 'Profiles' folder but did not overwrite the default one and did not modify the 'profiles.ini' file ?

I can think of a couple of other variations, but knowing precisely what you did is important.

Include images of what you copied to where to help explain your point.

Thanks very much. The profile was appearing in 2 places - under "Roaming\Thunderbird as well as under "Local\Thunderbird. I had copied into the latter but not the former. I now have it in both places (maybe not needed in Local) but it is working. Thanks again Mike