I did a search and I browsed through the FAQ so I apologize if this has been addressed elsewhere already.
I'm running the latest Thunderbird Portable between Vista x32 and Win 7 x32 systems. I have configured the "Local Directory" path for all of the email accounts (under "Server Settings") and the "local folders" entry to point to the appropriate folder on my USB drive.
What I am finding is that as soon as I start the application, it creates "C:\WINNT\PROFILES\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default.1a4\Mail\smart mailboxes". If I delete the entire directory tree, it gets recreated the next time I start Tbird.
A couple questions:
1. Is this expected behavior?
2. Can I configure Tbird to not do this?
Thanks in advance!
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Normally there is no need to change any folder manually. They all point to the profile folder inside your ThunderbirdPortable/Data folder.
Why did you change these locations?
I guess that your manual editing changed something and now it creates local profile folders. This never happened to me though.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Thanks for the reply.
I think I may have changed them when I initially switched from the non-portable version of Tbird years ago. I wouldn't have changed it on a whim.
I'm pretty sure I changed it because I saw that it was writing to the "default" profile folder on the C: drive (like the non-portable version of Tbird did) and I wanted the profile data to be on the USB drive with the portable app itself.
That's weird, TBird Portable should never write to the default profile folder.
The TBird launcher, in fact, explicitly tells it where the profile folder is - within the ThunderbirdPortable folder.
Are you sure TBird Portable (as opposed to the local install of TBird) was writing to the local profile folder? And how did you find that out?
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I'm 100% sure because I have no other installations of Tbird on either of my computers. I haven't had a traditional Tbird installation since I switched to the portable version.
I delete the WINNT folder while Tbird Portable is not running. The next time I start Tbird Portable, the folder tree gets recreated.
If you want to be sure, I'd back my old install and start anew. Rename /Data to /Data-old and thus let Thunderbird create a new profile folder. Enter your accounts and then copy your emails over to the new Data folder. ONce you made 100% sure everything works as it should, you can delete the old folder.
Thats what I would do (even if it might take some time to get all the emails back in place)
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
It's worth a try. I'll do it when time permits.
Thanks all for the discussion and help!
I'm finally back on this. So far, so good. It looks like the suggestion to move the old data folder and have Tbird create a new one did the trick.
My question now is how do I get my old messages into my new data folder? Is it just a matter of shutting down Tbird, copying over the various folder files out of my old "profile\Mail\Local Folders" directory into my new "profile\Mail\Local Folders", and then restarting Tbird and letting it recreate the .MSF files?
I'm guessing this is how I should be doing it. But, wanted to verify before I spent the time doing it.
Thanks again to everyone for all their help.
No need to answer. I just did what I was thinking of doing and it worked.
It could have something to do with having provided a profiles.ini file, with an absolute path in it.
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“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1