I have a profile that has 2 email accounts in it - I need to seperate them into two distinct profiles, how can I do this?

Question

I had a single laptop and several email accounts - a personal gmail account, a work gmail account (freelance writing) and a non-gmail account for my day-job.
Until recently, my two gmail accounts were under a single profile and the job email in another.
A month ago, I purchased a new computer so now I have a computer at home and at work and need to set up my emails at home.
When taking a backup from thunderbird on my existing/old computer, it has it all saved as one profile - BUT I need to seperate them at home into seperate profiles.
A friend suggested 1) putting it back as it is 2) then renaming the profile folder and 3) deleting the second account, 4) putting back the whole original backup folder so it creates a second profile and then 5) deleting the other email from this new profile, thus leaving two profiles.
However, this sounded strange to me - possible, but strange - so I've elected to ask for help here before I try anything.
Any advice in this regard is greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

Answer 1

Basically that's the way to go, with some modifications:
Instead of<br>
''1) putting it back as it is 2) then renaming the profile folder''
follow these instructions:<br>
Create a new profile and copy the old one over it.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder_-_Thunderbird#Create_a_new_profile_and_copy_the_old_one_over_it
The same goes for<br>
''4) putting back the whole original backup folder so it creates a second profile''
Make sure to create backups of your profiles.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_and_Restoring