Backing Up Thunderbird Profile: Local or Remote?

[Eugbug]

I'm backing up my Thunderbird profile because I may have to do a Windows reset. The advice is to copy the Thunderbird folder from the roaming folder and then delete the Thunderbird folder from the new installation and replace it with this. However just in case, I have copied the Thunderbird folder from the local folder to my backup device. This took much longer to do, even though it's only 634 MB as opposed to 449 MB for the contents of the roaming folder. All my emails are stored locally on my computer and I use POP for accessing them. I also have one of my two gmail accounts setup to delete mails from the server when downloaded. So should I be backing up the local or remote folder?

[DanRaisch]

To what “remote folder” are you referring? Since you have the account set up in Thunderbird as a POP type account all data is stored locally. Under Win 10 the profile is located under C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\

[Eugbug]

To what “remote folder” are you referring? Since you have the account set up in Thunderbird as a POP type account all data is stored locally. Under Win 10 the profile is located under C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\

Sorry, I meant "roaming".

[DanRaisch]

In that case just back up the \Roaming location. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup (Ignore any reference in that article to the old MozBackup utility. It hasn't been maintained in a number of years and may have problems with profiles created with newer versions of the email client.)

[JYLD]

The "roaming" profile seems to be the one that has everything, but I back up both the "roaming" and "local" profiles just to be sure. The "roaming" profile is the one that has the important .ini files that detail the names and locations of the profiles. Make sure you backup from "Thunderbird" on down to get those .ini files in your backup.

[Eugbug]

So I backed up the roaming profile, Did a Windows reset, reinstalled Thunderbird, deleted the profile folder and copy and pasted the profile folder from my external hard drive. Now I get an error "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded".Do I also need to copy the profile.ini file? Should I copy the entire contents of the Thunderbird folder?

[Eugbug]

Copied the profile.ini file and it now seems to work ok.

[DanRaisch]

Glad to hear that you have resolved things.