How to Backup and Restore Email in Thunderbird
About This Guide
The following guide describes how you can backup and restore Mozilla Thunderbird account settings and email. You should follow this guide in any of the following circumstances:
- You want to take a backup of your email to protect against it's loss
- You want to move your email and account settings to another computer
- You want to move your email to another another disk or any other non-default location (I.E. a network share etc)
The Profile Folder
Thunderbird makes it easy to backup and restore a user's account settings and email by collecting all of the user's data together in to a single folder known as their profile folder.
You can backup the user's profile by simply copying this folder; it's not necessary to use export as is usual with other email clients like Outlook.
Systems with multiple users may have several profile folders, but usually there will just one folder to backup.
The Profile Manager
Mozilla Thunderbird includes a "Profile Manager" that can be used to list existing profiles and their locations.
On Windows, start the Profile Manager by following these steps:
- Close Thunderbird completely (select File > Exit from the main menu of Thunderbird).
- Select Start > Run... from the Windows Start menu.
- Enter ''thunderbird.exe -profilemanager'' and press OK.
On Mac OS X, start the Profile Manager by holding down the Option key and double click the Thunderbird icon.
On Linux, start Thunderbird with the the -profilemanager switch, e.g. ./thunderbird -profilemanager (this assumes that you're in the Thunderbird directory).
You should now see the Profile Manager window, shown in the screenshot.
Locating Your Profile Folder
To backup your profile folder we must first locate it. If you hover your mouse pointer over the name of your profile in the Profile Manager then the path to your profile folder will be displayed.
Usually your profile will be in the default location, which are as follows:
- On Windows XP/2000, the default path is:
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default - On Windows 95/98/Me, the default path is:
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default - On Linux, the default path is::
~/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/ - On Mac OS X, the default path is:
~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/
Backup Your Profile Folder
To backup your profile folder simply locate the profile folder as described above and then copy the folder to a safe location. This might be a removable disk, flash drive or another computer.
Restore Your Profile Folder
To restore your profile folder simply copy it from the backup you took earlier to its new location. You can choose to place it anywhere you like, but sensible choices would be the default locations described above, your My Documents folder or your network share if you have one.
Create a New Profile
Now you have restored your profile you need to tell Thunderbird where to find it by creating a new profile. Start the profile manager on the new computer as described above. You should now see the Profile Manager window, shown in the screenshot:
Click on the Create Profile... button to start the Create Profile Wizard. Click Next and enter the name of the profile, e.g. your name or something descriptive.
When prompted to specify the location of the profile select the Profile Folder you previously restored from backup.
Finally, click Finish to have Thunderbird create the new profile.
You should now be taken back to the Profile Manager and the newly created profile should be listed.
Select it and click Start Thunderbird. That's it!
Multiple Profiles
You are now running Thunderbird with your new profile, and all your account settings and email should have been retained.
If you want to switch to another profile, just start the Profile Manager again and select another profile.
You can have Thunderbird start a profile automatically so you don't have to pick one each time by checking the Don't ask at startup option.