How to Backup Thunderbird Emails to PC? – Effective Methods of 2025

Want to backup Thunderbird emails to an external hard drive or PC?  If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best methods for backing up your Thunderbird emails with just a few simple steps.

Table of Content

Mozilla Thunderbird is a popular email client known for its versatility and user-friendly interface. It offers a wide range of features, including customizable folders, powerful search capabilities, and advanced email management tools. With Thunderbird, users can easily send, receive, and organize emails across multiple accounts. Whether you’re using Thunderbird for personal or professional purposes, having a reliable backup of your emails is essential to ensure you never lose important data.

Benefits of Creating Thunderbird Email Backup Locally

• Data Security: Saving Thunderbird emails to local PC protects your emails from online threats such as hacking, phishing, and other cyberattacks. Even if your email account is compromised, your local backup remains secure.
• Accessibility: Having a Thunderbird email backup means you can access your emails without needing an internet connection. This is particularly useful when you need to retrieve important emails during network outages or while traveling.
• Quick Recovery: In the event of data loss due to accidental deletion, software errors, or hardware failure, taking backup Thunderbird emails allow for quick recovery of your emails. You can restore your entire mailbox without any extra effort.
• Easy Migration: When upgrading to a new computer or switching email clients, downloading emails from Thunderbird to hard drive simplifies the migration process. You can easily transfer your emails to the new email client without losing any data.
• Performance Improvement: Archiving old emails and storing them locally can help improve the performance of your Thunderbird client. By reducing the number of emails stored online, you can enhance the speed and responsiveness of the email client.

How to Backup Thunderbird Emails to PC Manually?

1. Using Thunderbird and Outlook
2. Backup Thunderbird User’s Profile

Let’s discuss them one by one.

1. Backup Thunderbird Emails Using MS Outlook

• Firstly, run Mozilla Thunderbird on your computer.
• Next, select the emails you wish to back up. You can choose multiple emails.
• Right-click on the selected emails and choose the Save As option from the menu.
• In the dialog box that appears, select the target folder where you want to save your Thunderbird emails.
• Next, launch Microsoft Outlook on your computer. Create a new folder where you will save the Thunderbird emails.
• Using the drag-and-drop method, move the saved Thunderbird emails into the new folder you created in Outlook.
• In MS Outlook, go to the File menu.
• Navigate to the Open & Export option and then click on Import/Export.
• Select the Export to a file option from the list and click on the Next button.
• Choose Outlook Data File (.pst) as the format for your backup and click on Next.
• Select the folder containing the Thunderbird emails that you want to export. Make sure the correct folder is highlighted and then click on Next.
• Set your preferences for the export process and click on the Finish button. This will create a PST file containing your Thunderbird emails.

By following these steps, you can successfully backup Thunderbird emails and ensure they are stored securely for future access or transfer.

2. Take a Backup of Your Thunderbird User Profile

Backing up your Thunderbird user profile is an effective way to ensure all your emails, settings, and data are securely saved. Follow these steps to back up your Thunderbird user profile:

• Open the Thunderbird application on your computer.
• Click on the icon named “Display the Thunderbird Menu” (usually represented by three horizontal lines or a gear icon).
• In the menu, go to Help > Troubleshooting Information. This will open the Troubleshooting Information window in a new tab.
• Under the Application Basics section, find and click on the “Open Folder” (or “Open Directory”) button. This will open your profile directory in the file explorer.
• The profile directory will have a specific name format, often consisting of a random string of characters followed by .default. For example, xyz12345.default.
• Navigate back to the parent directory. Right-click on the profile folder and select “Copy”.
• Paste the copied profile folder into your desired backup location (e.g., an external hard drive, USB stick, or another directory on your computer).

By following these steps, you can backup Thunderbird emails, ensuring that all your emails, settings, and other data are securely saved.

Steps to Backup Thunderbird Emails are as follows:

1. Download and install the Yota Thunderbird Migration Tool.
2. Click on Open>> Desktop Email Clients>> Thunderbird Accounts.
   
3. Preview added Thunderbird profile data with attachments in multiple modes.
4. Next, click on the Export option and select the desired file format.
5. Finally, enter the location and hit the Save button to start the process.

That’s it! This is how you can backup Thunderbird emails to external hard drive or PC.

Also, watch the video mentioned below and learn the process of creating Thunderbird emails to PC, email clients, and email services.

Conclusion

Many Thunderbird users often seek effective solutions to the question – How to backup Thunderbird emails? In this blog, we’ve discussed various reasons why backing up Thunderbird emails is essential. We provided detailed steps to manually backup your Thunderbird profile and emails. Also, we have given an overview of the Thunderbird Backup Tool, a robust software solution that simplifies the backup process and supports a wide range of formats and migration options.

Free Download Buy Now

To address your backup needs, we recommend trying the free demo edition of the tool. This will allow you to explore its features and understand its functionality. If the demo meets your requirements, you can opt for the full version and enjoy a seamless, reliable backup process for your Thunderbird emails.