8

How can I move my config from Thunderbird APT to Thunderbird SNAP?

It seems the update crashed in the middle, and I am left with an empty Thunderbird profile once I install Thunderbird snap.

Natim
  • 1,197

4 Answers4

13

It seems that the new thunderbird profile folder moved to ~/snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird.

Steps to fix the issue:

  • Open Thunderbird

  • Go in the Help > Troubleshooting menu

  • Click Open Profile Folder (~/snap/thunderbird/common/*.default)

  • Close Thunderbird

  • Remove all files from the opened Profile folder

  • Copy ~/.thunderbird/*.default-release other profile into the previous folder.

  • Restart Thunderbird

It should be fixed.

Natim
  • 1,197
2

Caution! this did not work for me.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder_-_Thunderbird#Modify_profiles.ini_to_point_to_the_new_location

offers a manual way: find the ini file in /home//.thunderbird find your previous folder something like "asdhg.default-release"

go to /home//snap/thunderbird/common/.thunderbird

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=0
Path=Path=/home/<user>/.thunderbird/asdhg.default-release
Default=1

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
Version=2
Andres
  • 572
2

(Dec 2024, using Ubuntu 24.04 + KDE)

What I did

  • Close any running Thunderbird
  • Backup ~/.thunderbird and/or ~/snap/thunderbird, just in case
  • Unpin any TB icon from the KDE Task Manager bar (or Gnome...). This kept some settings from the current profile/TB version.
  • Update distro
  • sudo snap remove thunderbird --purge (note the purge :-)
  • sudo snap install thunderbird
  • Start TB from the app launcher (not the terminal)

If there are still some trouble after that, have a look at your ~/.thunderbird dir

  • Close TB
  • cd ~/.thunderbird
  • ls -l check if any extra profile was created by snap before
  • Rename (backup) that/these profile(s) so that snap cannot see them mv abc1234.default BAD-abc1234.default
  • Check also for xxx.default-esr profiles that the troubleshooter created... Unless you want that, I'd rename them.
  • Restart TB (or restart the whole procedure from the top of this answer)

You may now pin the new working TB started from the app launcher.

Déjà vu
  • 1,089
0

TLDR: Actually, here the change required was minimal. Edit ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini, make sure your actual profile (here: Profile0) features the Default=1 entry.

[Profile0]
Name=default-release
IsRelative=1
Path=foobar.default-release
Default=1

The transition from deb to snap package correctly linked to the old thunderbird profile directory

ls ~/snap/thunderbird/common/
.thunderbird -> /home/foobar/.thunderbird/

but then another profile (Profile1) got set to default wrecking the transition.

Solution: just set the correct profile to Default=1.

Gen.Stack
  • 123