Changing the folder

[orealius]

Can we change the default folder where TB keeps its Profile. Right now it's in appdata on my 256 GB C drive. I'd like to put it on a larger drive as it is beginning to eat up space.

[DanRaisch]

See these articles --

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile

[orealius]

How do I access the "Profile Manager" in TB? It's not in the start menu in Win 10.

[tanstaafl]

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager .

[DanRaisch]

It hasn't been in the Start Menu for a good number of Firefox versions.

Close Firefox. While holding down the Shift key, launch Firefox. You should see the Profile Manager appear.
Alternatively, enter "about:profile" in the location bar (without the quotation marks) and click on the "Create new profile" button.

[orealius]

Not using Firefox...Using only Thunderbird.

[DanRaisch]

Sorry, I did misspeak.

Close Thunderbird. While holding down the Shift key, launch Thunderbird. You should see the Profile Manager appear.

[orealius]

I get Safe Mode option

[tanstaafl]

You need to use a -P or -profilemanager command line argument to launch the profile manager. Its a built-in function within Thunderbird.

Typically you can type cmd at the Windows start menu and then in the window console that it creates type "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -P

The double quotes are needed due to the embedded spaces in the path. If you were running Thunderbird beforehand you need to exit it in order to launch it again (to run the profile manager)

[DanRaisch]

Sorry, I use that function so seldom I forgot that it is the Ctrl key, not the Shift key, to get the Profile Manager.

[tanstaafl]

Holding down the Control key while clicking on the Thunderbird shortcut launches Thunderbird normally on my PC.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/us ... e-profiles mentions "Press Windows Key +R on the keyboard to open the Run dialog. Then enter "thunderbird.exe -p" and click OK." which is easier than the instructions I provided since it doesn't require you to specify the path.

[DanRaisch]

Well, I'm really embarrassed now. The shortcut I was clicking on included the -p switch in it's properties.

[Frank Lion]

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager .

That's actually a bit old fashioned with Thunderbird, which shares common code with Firefox.

The 'new' way is to use the built-in profile manager, found in about:profiles

Slightly harder to access in T/Bird, rather than Firefox, but just do Tools>Options*>General>T/Bird Start Page> enter about:profiles in the box and restart.

*Linux users don't have to be told that's Edit>Preferences for them, do they?

(Btw theme writers use that page for its Restart Button, well, I do.)

[tanstaafl]

Why does it list both a root directory and a local directory for the default profile? The profiles.ini file defaults to using relative paths, and uses the same directory tree as the root directory.

My profile is at C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\w0p7q3aa.default

The relevant part of profiles.ini contains:

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/w0p7q3aa.default
Default=1

and C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Thunderbird has no profiles.ini file, though it has a Profiles\w0p7q3aa.default directory. That directory has a few child directories, but the only files in it that have been modified in months are a empty .startup-incomplete file and the startupCache.4.little and webext.sc.lz4 files in startupCache.

Why is startupCache in a separate directory tree than the "real" profile? This seems overly complex.

[Frank Lion]

Why does it list both a root directory and a local directory for the default profile?

Only because Firefox does, which is where it came from.

In practice, the Local directory (also confusingly described as a profile) is just the cache and other temporary stuff, that they didn't know where else to put, and can be ignored. The Firefox equivalent contains a fair bit more, but is equally dull.

The existence of this location is theoretically useful and it's worth noting that for those tight on 'space' that the entire Local profile/cache may be safely manually deleted at any time, if desired. However, as the Local profile has a very similar and easily mistakable address to that of the 'real' profile in Roaming, etc. it is unwise to suggest this to novice users.

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The about:profiles page may also be accessed via Help>Troubleshooting Info>Application Basics (top block of text) > about:profiles link.