If the special account is Local Folders, you cannot remove that. It is created by Thunderbird and is part of the email setup.

I know it cannot be removed BUT tb does not create a special account in every installation. I need to know the basis on which it decides to create the account so that I can change my setup and prevent the account from being created in the first place.

Yes, there is a local folder special account in every single installation that has ever occurred in Thunderbirds 10 years of existence.,

So perhaps you could explain what the issue is so we might be able to understand and advise on how to do what your trying to do.

I have a similar problem and cannot find a way to post it apart from this reply facility. I initially downloaded Thunderbird about 2 or more years ago but had problems so deleted it. I recently decided to give it another go to replace Outlook 2007. The current imported folders that appear in the folder list will not open, but the up to date contacts list can be accessed. Only historic folder contents could be opened. If I go to tools and select account settings the message informing me that 'the following is a special account. There are no identities associated with it' appears. When I try elsewhere to access account settings, a message 'An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name'. The only way that I could gain access to Thunderbird support was to register my gmail account which I only use on my smart phone and nexus 7 tablet.

newby15 said

I have a similar problem and cannot find a way to post it apart from this reply facility.

This link starts the ask a question wizard https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new

You may be best off just deleting the profile and starting all over as your old and new will be sort of mixed. So please ask your own question and we will look at is.