Windows Vista and 7
- Click the Windows Start button and type %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\ in the Search box at the bottom of the Start menu, without pressing Enter. A list of profiles will appear at the top of the Start menu.
- Click on any of the profiles (e.g. xxxxxxxx.default) to open it with Windows Explorer.
Backing up a profile
To back up your profile, simply shut down Thunderbird and then copy the profile folder to a backup location (such as an external disk or drive).
Moving a profile
Occasionally, you might want to move a profile or tell Thunderbird to use a profile stored in another location.
- Shut down Thunderbird.
- Move the profile folder to the desired location. For example, on Windows XP, move the profile from C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default to D:\Stuff\MyMailProfile. (If you are reverting to a backed up profile, this step isn't necessary. Just note the current location of the profile you want to restore.)
- Open up the profiles.ini file in a text editor. The file is located in the application data folder for Thunderbird:
- On Windows Vista/XP/2000, the path is %AppData%\Thunderbird\
- On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Thunderbird\
- On Linux, the path is ~/.thunderbird/
- On Mac OS X, the path is ~/Library/Thunderbird/
- In the profiles.ini file, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
- If you switch from a relative path to a non-relative path, the direction of the slashes may need to change. For example, in Windows, non-relative paths use backslashes, whereas relative ones use forward slashes. Change IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
- Save profiles.ini and restart Thunderbird.
