AWFUL Thunderbird experience, alternatives?

Been using TBIRD for decades. Went to install it on a refurb'd Dell 9020 I just bought. Installed an older version, 60.9.0, same as I'm running on my older PC. I've been online since the early 90's, & have 15 email accounts I've accumulated over the years which I access via Tbird. PITA to set them all up, POP3 (prefer to imap), SMTP, security, PW's, etc., took well over an hour. Opened Tbird yesterday, the damned thing automatically "upgraded" to the newest version, then told me none of my previous set up, accounts and emails could be transferred to the newer version ("incompatible") and it DELETED ALL of that. NO warning of any kind, it just DID IT. I've reinstalled the older version, and made sure I'd clicked NEVER update. Loaded ONE account this time, so far so good, keeping an eye on it before I load the others, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of an email client better than Tbird? TIA!

Thanks for the reply. I general do attempt to just copy setup files, but that's often not as straightforward as one would hope, and often doesn't work all that well even if you can pull it off. Used that "export bookmarks using html" to transfer from my old FF browser to the new install. Didn't work at all with the Waterfox browser I also have, with FF id DID create the html file, but didn't import the bookmarks toolbar sites properly; I had to manually move those.

You can also try the portable version. PortableApps.com - Browse /Mozilla Thunderbird, P.E. at SourceForge.net

Chose English paf if in the U.S. if American English is what you prefer. English GB is Great Britain.

And for the record... LOL! Tobin is a dick. That's the binary outcast Dev for his so-called Interlink. His Sig is New Tobin Paradigm. If there was a new code paradigm computers would smoke.

Edit-

The profile folder is not comprised of "setup files." This is the profile containing your accounts and settings.

FredTastic said:

Been using TBIRD for decades. Went to install it on a refurb'd Dell 9020 I just bought. Installed an older version, 60.9.0, same as I'm running on my older PC. I've been online since the early 90's, & have 15 email accounts I've accumulated over the years which I access via Tbird. PITA to set them all up, POP3 (prefer to imap), SMTP, security, PW's, etc., took well over an hour. Opened Tbird yesterday, the damned thing automatically "upgraded" to the newest version, then told me none of my previous set up, accounts and emails could be transferred to the newer version ("incompatible") and it DELETED ALL of that. NO warning of any kind, it just DID IT. I've reinstalled the older version, and made sure I'd clicked NEVER update. Loaded ONE account this time, so far so good, keeping an eye on it before I load the others, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of an email client better than Tbird? TIA!

That fairly well covers what I am going through as well. What they did with V.78 is, in my opinion, very ignorant. On the other hand, their motives are not financial, I think. Does T'bird make money??? They do it for other reasons: geekiness, power, etc.. Of course, there is a great deal of that sort of thing is the digital world. They do most of this stuff for themselves, not for users, IMO. Also, there are a few thousand users who know as much as the developers, and they cheer on the developers, so there is an echo chamber which is about seven light years over the heads of most users. This is the worst piece of digital dog pooh I have witnessed in many years. In my case, I did not have wife's laptop set to block automatic updates, so I am negligent, but they should not be doing that sort of major crud without warning.

I will perhaps wade in on my particular drama in a while, but meanwhile I have to deal with Step A, which I will do on a new thread. It may cost me $$$ to get it sorted.