How do I completely erase my Thunderbird installation on Mac OS?

April 26, 2006 3:14 PM

After installing, uninstalling and reinstalling, there are ghosts of my old (now deleted) IMAP folders. How the heck do I get rid of them?

I installed Thunderbird a few months ago and set up my IMAP (Exchange) mail account. After I was done checking it out, I uninstalled it.

Fast forward to now, I want to switch back. After installing and running, it still lists all my old IMAP folders (now deleted from the server) and I can't figure out how to get rid of these 'ghosts'.

Googling various combinations of 'uninstall', 'Thunderbird', 'remove', and 'profile' yields some information but not enough to actually get rid of those damn ghost folders.

Help!

posted by nessahead to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Not sure with Thunderbird specifically, but whenever I've used IMAP, you have to delete and then purge.
posted by dsword at 3:21 PM on April 26, 2006

I should just shut up, because I have no idea what I'm talking about, as I don't use Thunderbird, but this might be helpful.
posted by dsword at 3:28 PM on April 26, 2006

I don't know Mac OS and I don't know IMAP, but I've had a bit of experience with Thunderbird. If I were in your situation, I'd start Thunderbird with the -profilemanager option. Your installation may have created a launcher called something like "Profile Manager" that does this for you (it does on Windows) or just enter

thunderbird -profilemanager

in a terminal window.

Use the Profile Manager to create a new profile, select it and start Thunderbird on it. If the new profile works for you, crank up the Profile Manager a second time and use it to delete your old profile (and all its files).
posted by flabdablet at 4:36 PM on April 26, 2006

You're still using IMAP? Ok, good plan.
Since you're switching back to it, here's what you do:

* Find /Users/yourname/Library/Thunderbird
* Toss it into the Trash.
* Empty the Trash.

Launch Thunderbird. It oughta ask you to create a new profile. Actually, it does. I just tested it.
posted by drstein at 7:15 PM on April 26, 2006

Or, if you want to be security conscious:

srm --recursive --medium ~/Library/Thunderbird
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:44 AM on April 27, 2006

Thanks, drstein :) It worked!
posted by nessahead at 1:28 PM on April 27, 2006