is it getting new mail? My "guess" is your new version is blocking Thunderbird actually getting out to the internet to synchronize your mail, so it has been deleted locally as no longer existing. Look for an anti virus or firewall that is blocking things.

Thanks for your thoughts, Matt. I'm sorry. Reading my original submission, I was extremely tired when I wrote it, so will try to clarify the problem now. It's not a case of syncing, since I use POP3 and download all my emails. The problem lies in the transfer of existing data to Thunderbird (which I have always thought rather amateurish, I'm afraid), as when, in my case you have to reload the operating system. If you read the documentation, you are called upon to fiddle with the profile and load the old data into the mail profile file. This I have done and, in times past, when you then ran up Thunderbird with the newly laced profiles, Bingo! there were your old mail folders complete with emails, ready to go. In this case, all that the program recognises is the address book. To my eye, it rather looks as though an alteration has been carried out which now prevents this happening. The program now reacts as if no one has told it anything and it wants you to set up a mail profile as if you are a new user ... even though the data is there. As ever, of course, unless it's an unintentional blunder, the documentation has yet to catch up so I am now left clutching the old profile with all my emails in it and no idea of how to get the new version to recognise the fact. I'm rather hoping that someone out there will prove me wrong and say "Oi, you clot, This is what you do!". Thanks for your thoughts, though. They were appreciated.

If you start Profile Manager, are there other profiles besides the current default one? Windowskey+R, type thunderbird.exe -p

Are there multiple profile folders in

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles

I can't tell if you've encountered the common problem of a disappeared profile, or an issue related to TB 68's 'profile protection' feature, which is causing unnecessary misery.

Hi SFHowes Thanks. You have saved me a bit of digging. I doubt it's the 'Disappearing Profile', since on of the attempts I made consisted of using Profile Manager to creat a new profile using the profile name of the one I archived, than swapping new with old. The 'profile protection' (I do love the inverted commas  ;-) ) is something I know nothing about. I'll have to search for that, but surely to goodness they wouldn't be daft enough tighten up protection on the profile files when there is no other mechanism for importing existing data other than (as I said) fiddling with them. I would hope the sensible approach would be to finally introduce a simple to use data import process first which even a non-computer literate could use. It's omissions like these which, I think, put off users from coming on board. Anyway, that's another matter. Thanks for your input. I shan't be able to do anything for the next couple of days (Hogmany, family and all that), but promise to report progress (or lack of!) as and when. Hae a Guid New Year! (Should I change my forum name to Macsuetonius???)

Hi Each I have tried everything I can think of to resolve matters, but it seems obvious to me that some change has taken place that is undocumented. Yet the progam was released. Quality control? I'm afraid I can't afford to use an unreliable email client subject to such whims. I have been a faithful user of Thunderbird for more years than I can remember ... because it was dependable. I was scrubbing around trying to get further info, even as a workaround, and came across a discussion about a TB 68 profile cock-up (half of which I didn't understand) where one software engineer ironically stated "You'll get 750,00 complaints" and received the reply "I'm not sure where you get that number from", then you know it's really time to move on. Which is what I'm doing. "Goodbye and thanks for all the fish"

Suetonius said

"Goodbye and thanks for all the fish"

Thanks for wasting our time. You could have done that days ago.

Dear Matt A thousand apologies. Re-reading my email, my flippancy was misplaced. I certainly did not intend to cause upset. I'm afraid it is all born out of frustration. Days ago, I thought I could repair matters. My last reply was written when I had finally discovered I couldn't. Please accept my apologies and thanks for your help. I shall try to do better next time.  :-( In the meantime, I have logged a bug, but can't go on like this, so will be changing away from Thunderbird, certainly for the immediate future. Thanks again and good luck for the future. Suetonius

It is my opinion that this is your issue, https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html A relatively painless process to recover from for probably 99% of those caught up in the profile per install fiasco that Mozilla imposed. I know the update to Thunderbird 68 can be a mess, but it was going to be much worse as converting to a 64bit version would have lost the profile of each and every one that moved. I could point you to bug reports going back months were attempts to mitigate the update process were made. But for those remaining, there is really only manually fix the issue and move on. Mozilla do not appear all that interested in fixing their migration code as Firefox has now already migrated.

james.d.hogg said

My last reply was written when I had finally discovered I couldn't.

Unless you prefs.js file is damaged, I do not accept that recovery is not possible.

A Happy New Year to you, Matt! Really good to hear from you again. Thanks for the info; at a glance it looks reallly promising and is not something I had come across. We have house guests at the moment (I have just sneaked off), so I shan't be able to put things into action right away, but I'll get back to you when I can.

Hi Matt I'm very pleased to say, you were quite correct ... my apologies again for ever doubting your advice. The magic bullet appears to have been the input: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\Thunderbird" -allow-downgrade

I thought the version of TB I'd been using was 32 bit and re-installed as such. I'm now wondering if I had been updated to 64 bit.

Certainly, whatever it was the important thing is that I now have all my emails back - what a relief.

Thanks again.

Now you know how, and while it is still fresh, update to the 64bit build. It is not being generally offered, after early adopters got exactly what you have had because the path the program is stored in on Windows changes.

Download from here https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

Note that if you use the windows feature send mail to for photos or a scanner it might not be a good idea as windows MAPI does not appear to work in 64bit builds. This is also applicable to mail from accounting packages et al. It is a minor inconvenience to me but others would find it frustrating to the extreme.

Thanks Matt All done now. Like you, the limitations on 64-bit are not of importance to me. Thanks once again for your patience and help.