I have no solution, but I can help you look. Try this: - click help>troubleshootinginformation - scroll down left side to 'profiles' and click 'about:profile" button - the next pane shows known profiles to thunderbird. If there is more than one, click to try it - if that doesn't work, try this: - repeat the help>troubleshootininformation - this time, scroll down to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder' - if there is more than one folder, yours may be one. look at content and dates. IMAP accouts would be in Imapmail folder and POP accounts in the Mail folder and local folders in the Mail\Local Folder folder and the addressbook would be abook.sqlite and history.sqlite. - all of those can be salvaged. Let me know what you find.

Hi David

I got to two lots of folder structures.

Initially the Root Directory and Local Directory were showing as .........\rlrtuv5o.default

In the structures I got to I saw the IMAP and POP folders with large data files in them

I clicked on various things but nothing then happened and I still have the screen I provided previously

thanks Andrew

Okay, so the older profile could not be used, I presume, as you didn't mention it. The IMAP folders will automatically repopulate when you recreate the account. If you had messages in Local Folders, you can copy, in File Explorer with Thunderbird not running, to the Mail\Local Folders folder on the active profile. That saves them. If you have a POP account, I suggest multiple steps: start thunderbird and click and setup the account WITHOUT password and then exit and copy all message folders and other files to the active profile's Mail folder to match the setup. An important file is popstate.dat - it has info on the most recently downloaded message. You need that and other files in place so that the first time you retrieve messages, you will not have lost any.

Hi David, thanks for your patience years ago before retirement I understood most of the computer progs - these days not so well

I have a gmail account open and a hotmail one too but could not find any active mail folders to copy and paste from to get the local folders.

I looked in users/appdata/thunderbird tried a search fpr popstate.dat with no success

All very strange and all of this problem has arisen since using TB for the first time this morning after yesterdays automatic update

many thanks

well Im not sure how I did it but got things almost back to normal

For some reason after my changes, both accounts downloaded hundreds of messages into the inbox, even though in recent months I had been clearing them down to minimum levels to keep - this is not the end of the world

With regard Local folders, I found on the Local tab an import setting, so I looked at the path for that and the end of the path was something like Local\mail.1 or similar This was a folder with minimal file sizes inside it

Next I looked in the Local\mail folder and there were all my local folders and messages so I imported them and all seems to be working fine now

Just wish I knew why this problem arose after the auto update

David many many thanks for your guidance I would not have got there without your kind help

regards Andrew

Any time you see files or folders in Thunderbird with a 1 on them, or any number it is a red flag that there is something causing issues when files are written. This is most commonly the antivirus and you should institute an exception in the product for the Thunderbird profile folder now you have it. It was probably instrumental in your initial loss

I was glad to assist. I suggest you implement a periodic backup to protect you from problems. Simplest way is this: - exit thunderbird - copy c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird to somewhere else If you need a restore, just copy the thunderbird folder back (when thunderbird not running) Matt's point is important; we daily see people with multiple copies of key files, preventing proper execution

thank you both so much for your support - comments both noted

cheers Andrew