I installed dualboot Linux Mint Mate15 and WindowsXP and am establishing Thunderbird as successor of Outlook.
After installing the Windows Thunderbird version I already managed to import my Outlook mails (Outlook.pst and archive.pst) in Thunderbird and backed up on an external disk the Profile of that Windows Thunderbird containing all my previous mails and settings and want now to import that Profile into the Linux Thunderbird.
I read somewhere I should do that with the Profile Manager and not just paste that Profile content in the Linux Thunderbird version.
When I tried, however, to use Profile Manager and clicked "Create" it made a Profile with its unique code, but empty. I missed a possibility to import my previous mail from the Windows Thunderbird Profile I backed up on my external disk.
If I use the Browse button it seems to me that will be the destination location for that new and empty Profile.
=> How do I get the content of the Profile backup from the Windows Thunderbird version in my Linux Thunderbird?
Just copy-paste all content of the Profile om my external disk to the newly created Profile in home/henk/.thunderbird/? And juste paste it and add it or over write it?

In case you still need it, it's all here

I tried to paste the content of my backup Profile into the newly by Profile manager created Profile with another number, but got the error message: There is insufficient space in the destination location. Try to remove some files to create more space"
The old files are approx 10 GB, and the new Profile is still empty. Could there be another way to import the content?

Is there enough empty space on your destination drive?

That's a good point!
I got stuck in a fixation that the partition was 100GB, but your remark made me check that again.
Hopefully that brings a solution by configuring the Linux Profile now also on the external disk where is plenty of space.
Thanks.

.... would it be a good idea to make a separate additional Profile for my old Outlook mail and put that not in the Linux /home partition, but in another partition or on my external disk?

That worked! Thanks.
I moved the profile for my current Thunderbird mail to the partition with lots of space. My Profile backup of previous Outlook mail was there already. And subsequently I adjusted the Profiles.ini file as follows:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
lsRelative=1
Path=mugnomlz.default

[Profile1]
Name=Default User
lsRelative=0
Path=/media/<user>/NewVolume1/My Documents/Mail/xxxxxxxx.Default User
Default=1

[Profile2]
Name=Outlook Mail
lsRelative=0
Path=/media/<user>/NewVolume1/My Documents/Mail/xxxxxxxx.default

=> Does anyone know how I can now a) see the content folders of both profiles Default User and Outlook Mail together or b) switch between both profiles?

Try launching thunderbird with the -P parameter.

Do you mean this?
Then I get the following:

henk@henk-OptiPlex-740 ~ $ thunderbird -P

(process:11903): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion `sys_page_size == 0' failed

I have no idea what this means. Do you have any idea?

I have the feeling that I either should change something in Profiles.ini or paste mail content from the "Outlook Mail" profile into the "Default User" profile, which then might contain both my current daily mail content and the Outlook archived mails. But which files then to select in order to prevent over writing files of my current mail or damaging the profile.

You should get a menu with available profiles instead of that error. This is my example ---> link
For the latter. It seems to be a problem with some missing libraries. Try to read here for possible solutions.

It is only getting worse and worse and becoming pretty annoying.
I found a thread and thought I now could solve it with that clear explanation (although the error of the library still is a puzzle to me as a non-expert):
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Combining_two_profiles

Then Thunderbird kept saying "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." and now it couldn't be started at all anymore. So now I have no mail anymore and can only mail via roundcube at the moment.

Then I removed Thunderbird in order to reinstall it starting from scratch.

But all I got now is Thunderbird with its previous settings and still ever the same message "Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.

=> How could I make a clean start building it up from zero?

Is there by the way a similar facility like in Windows of "system restore" to a previous version?

Check the permission and the owner of folder
removing .thunderbird folder in your home directory should help but a more safe option is to get rid/move to another location the folder containing your profile data.

Mine is located at :

The one with the "default" suffix is the target.



There is no such feature in Ubuntu AFAIK, but there are plenty of tools to backup your data. In your case, you can make use of incremental backup, so your data is backed-up automatically and can be easily restored in case of need. Google it around.

I solved it with the help of a friendly LUG member.

Problem 1 of not being able to load the profile because it couldn't be found came because I had put the profile in a partition on a 2nd hdd in my PC, which needed to be mounted first (as shown by the icon of a small tringle with underscore) and then could be found. Then the profile could be found according to the path in profiles.ini.

Problem 2 of my old imported Outlook mail (Personal Folders and Archive) not becoming visible in the left pane of Thunderbird together with the mailaccounts even after having downloaded the .sbd folder with that Outlook mail into the Mail folder of my new profile was solved by copying that content also to the .msf folder.

This restored the desired situation of having my new mail in the Inbox and Sent box together with my imported old mail under Local Folders together in the left pane of Thunderbird.

Thanks for the assistance, Henk.