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.
But before we dive into the backup process, let’s take a moment to understand what Thunderbird is.
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.
Let’s have a look at some user queries to understand the whole situation:
Query 1: Hello, I’ve been using Thunderbird for a while now, and I want to make sure I have a backup of all my emails in case something goes wrong with my computer. What’s the best way to backup Thunderbird emails, including all folders and settings?
Query 2: Hi, I’m experiencing some performance issues with Thunderbird, and I suspect it might be due to the large number of emails I have stored. So now I want to delete my old emails from my Thunderbird account to improve its performance. But for this, I have to take backup of Thunderbird emails. Do you have any appropriate method to save Thunderbird emails to local PC without losing a single piece of 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.
Methods to Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive
To download emails from Thunderbird to your PC, you can go for manual and professional methods.
Manual Method to Save Thunderbird Emails to Hard Drive
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.
Limitations of Manual Method
- The manual process takes a significant amount of time and effort.
- There is no guarantee that all emails will be correctly and completely exported.
- Users need to be technically proficient to perform manual backups accurately. A single mistake can disrupt the entire backup process, leading to potential data loss.
- The steps involved in manual backup are often complicated and not user-friendly.
- Manual backup methods often support fewer export formats with limiting flexibility.
Create Thunderbird Backup to Computer Using Professional Tool
Yota Email Backup Tool is a powerful solution designed to help users backup Thunderbird emails to external hard drive or PC effortlessly. This tool supports a wide range of file formats including PST, EML, MSG, PDF, CSV, and more. This flexibility ensures that your Thunderbird data can be accessed and used across various platforms and email clients. Additionally, the software provides the option to select specific Thunderbird profiles, whether it’s the default profile or another one, making the backup process customizable and user-friendly.
Additionally, the Email Migration tool is not limited to just local backups. It also facilitates seamless migration of Thunderbird mailboxes to various email services such as Office 365, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Hotmail, IMAP, Zoho Mail, and iCloud. This feature is particularly beneficial for users looking to switch to a different email service without losing their valuable email data. The tool allows users to save Thunderbird emails on various storage options including computers, local drives, and external hard drives.
Steps to Backup Thunderbird Emails are as follows:
- Download and install the Yota Thunderbird Migration Tool.
- Click on Open>> Desktop Email Clients>> Thunderbird Accounts.
- Preview added Thunderbird profile data with attachments in multiple modes.
- Next, click on the Export option and select PST or other formats.
- 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.
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.
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.