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cannot open Thunderbird Profile manager for 128.2.0esr in macOS 14.6.1

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  • Last reply by david

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New to Thunderbird and to macOS. I need to create 3 separate profiles. I have successfully created one account, but I need two more, and I must not mingle the email accounts in a single profile. I have followed instructions to open ProfileManager but Terminal reports that the path does not exist. It doesn't seem to matter whether I quit Thunderbird, because the Terminal Response is the same (I have tried the command both ways, and restarted the computer after installation). The Thunderbird Help files point to Thunderbird 115 with macOS, but my installation download created version 128.2.0esr. Troubleshooting Information in Thunderbird Help shows the Application Binary as "/Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird" and that is what's indicated in the instructions to open the ProfileManager except it cannot find the -bin -P.

As additional background on my plight: I have only set up one user on the computer, and I am logged in as that user so Terminal opens in my user directory. I was pretty comfortable in a Windows (up to 8.1) environment, and am struggling with my move to the Mac, so it may be that I don't have permissions or some other setting set correctly to do this, but I don't know what to look for.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

New to Thunderbird and to macOS. I need to create 3 separate profiles. I have successfully created one account, but I need two more, and I must not mingle the email accounts in a single profile. I have followed instructions to open ProfileManager but Terminal reports that the path does not exist. It doesn't seem to matter whether I quit Thunderbird, because the Terminal Response is the same (I have tried the command both ways, and restarted the computer after installation). The Thunderbird Help files point to Thunderbird 115 with macOS, but my installation download created version 128.2.0esr. Troubleshooting Information in Thunderbird Help shows the Application Binary as "/Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird" and that is what's indicated in the instructions to open the ProfileManager except it cannot find the -bin -P. As additional background on my plight: I have only set up one user on the computer, and I am logged in as that user so Terminal opens in my user directory. I was pretty comfortable in a Windows (up to 8.1) environment, and am struggling with my move to the Mac, so it may be that I don't have permissions or some other setting set correctly to do this, but I don't know what to look for. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Chosen solution

I do not know Mac, but I think Thunderbird is consistent across platforms. Instead of starting Profile Manager alone, I would use the embedded support in Thunderbird. Here are those steps:'

  1. click help>troubleshootinginformation
  2. scroll down to 'profiles' on left side and click 'about:profiles'
  3. on left side, select 'create a new profile'
  4. click Next
  5. on next pane, enter a short name for the profile, e.g., JanesProfile, JimsProfile, etc.
  6. on line below, note that Thunderbird has created a name for the new profile. click 'Finish'
  7. the new profile should now appear in list of profiles. Click 'launch' to activate and use it.
  8. repeat for additional profiles. When done, starting Profile Manager will display the short names for easy selection.
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Chosen Solution

I do not know Mac, but I think Thunderbird is consistent across platforms. Instead of starting Profile Manager alone, I would use the embedded support in Thunderbird. Here are those steps:'

  1. click help>troubleshootinginformation
  2. scroll down to 'profiles' on left side and click 'about:profiles'
  3. on left side, select 'create a new profile'
  4. click Next
  5. on next pane, enter a short name for the profile, e.g., JanesProfile, JimsProfile, etc.
  6. on line below, note that Thunderbird has created a name for the new profile. click 'Finish'
  7. the new profile should now appear in list of profiles. Click 'launch' to activate and use it.
  8. repeat for additional profiles. When done, starting Profile Manager will display the short names for easy selection.

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David, you're fantastic! I successfully set up the second profile, and both work! One more profile to go, and then I need to figure out how to get the profile manager to open automatically so the correct profile can be chosen or how to write a command to launch each specific profile. But today is another day, and this is a huge leap forward!

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I'm glad it worked out for you. I don't know Mac, but in Windows, I rightclick the desktop icon for thunderbird and add -p to the command line a space or two to the right of where thunderbird.exe appears. If Mac has similar desktop icons that can be edited, this should work for you.

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