IF the account is still active on old computer and you use WIndows, these steps generally work: - exit tb on old computer - copy profile (normally c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird ) to external media - install tb on new computer and exit - copy the backed up thunderbird folder to c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming to overwrite the default thunderbird folder created by the install. - start tb on new pc.

I followed these instructions and when I try to open Thunderbird it tells me my profile is missing or inaccessible. So I'm back to square one and thank heavens I didn't just trash my old laptop. But... help!

recheck all the steps. in the thunderbird folder is a file, profiles.ini. It points to the active profile, which is also in the Thunderbird folder. Since they were both copied together, the connection should stay the same. browse the name of profile in profiles.ini and the profile with that name should be in the appdata\thunderbird\profiles folder.

i am assuming the setup on old computer was the standard one. If you had switched it to another drive, that would require a different approach. The instructions I provided have worked 100% in the past, so the problem is somewhere in the details.