trouble reading old emails in local folders in thunderbird
 

fedora 14
changed .thunderbird folder, copy and pasted old localfolders with emails
This is the location of old emails /home/Michael/.thunderbird/ik7sjy71.default/Mail/Local Folders/Archives.sbd Buy, thunderbird can not read old emails in local folders. Want to keep old emails stored in local folders that I have before making change.

It's kind of hard to understand what you mean without a little more detail, but I read it as you want to create an email archive. One way would be to create an extra account that you just move all the old emails to: the files will still be stored in the current profile though.

What it kind of sounds like you are asking though is how to create an email archive profile. You could start thunderbird using and create a new archive profile directing to the old folder there.