4 Quick Ways to Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive

Being a professional or an individual, there are many occasions when we need to backup Mozilla Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive, Computer or some other email clients to make our crucial email data protected. Therefore, if you are a such person and looking for a solution to backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard drive, read this blog till the end.

What is Mozilla Thunderbird Email?

Unlike other email clients, the Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source web-based email client used by many professionals and individuals to send or receive emails to transfer important data. The Mozilla Thunderbird application supports IMAP, POP & LDAP address and has an ability to run smoothly on Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Thunderbird Profile Location in Windows OS

Before moving ahead, lets know how to find the location of Thunderbird Email Database in Windows OS:

• Go to Start Menu and type %appdata% in the Search box.
• Choose the Roaming item displaying on the menu.
• Here in the Windows Explorer window, choose
• Click on Profile Here you will find all the profile folders saved on your computer.

Note: You can also follow C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\\. To get the location of the Thunderbird profile.

Why There is a Need to Copy Thunderbird Emails to the Hard Drive?

• System got physically damaged.
• Data corruption due to sudden power shutdown.
• System files got corrupted due to virus attacks.
• Data loss chances while migrating email data from one Thunderbird email client to another.

How to Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive?

There are several workarounds to backup Mozilla Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive. Few of them are listed below:

Method 1: Save As Option – Easy method to download Thunderbird emails to Locally

This is a commonly used method to save thunderbird emails to external hard drive or on the computer.

• Open Mozilla Thunderbird application to backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive.
• Select the emails you want to save on the external hard drive.
• Click on the Menu button and click on Save As from the drop-down list.
• Now, choose the saving location by providing the folder name to save the selected emails.
• Finally, click on the Save button to get the backup process done on your system.

Method 2: ImportExportTools Add-on to Export Thunderbird Emails

There is no built-in feature to export emails from Thunderbird to hard drive directly. Hence, to export emails from Thunderbird to external hard drive or another file formats such as EML, HTML, PDF, Spreadsheet, etc., it is necessary to add the ImportExportTools add-on.

• Launch Mozilla Thunderbird on your PC.
• Click on the Display the Thunderbird Menu icon displaying at the top-right corner.
• Hit on Add-ons under the drop-down menu.
• How, click on Add-ons button from the Add-ons Manager
• Choose the Import/ExportTools add-on.
• Here, click on the Add to Thunderbird
• Click on Install button to install the add-on to your Thunderbird client.
• Finally, go back to the Add-ons Manager window and hit the Restart now button to end the process.
• Right-click on the Inbox and choose ImportExportTools.
• Now select Export all messages in the folder and click on EML format.
• Select a desired saving option to save the backup files and click on the Select Folder

Method 3: Save and Backup Mozilla Thunderbird Profile

This is another method to backup Thunderbird emails to external hard drive as Mozilla Thunderbird saves information in a set of files called Profile. Below are the steps to save Thunderbird profile data.

• Open Mozilla Thunderbird application and click on Menu
• Under the drop-down menu, choose the Help
• Now, go to Help and click on Troubleshooting Information.
• Click on the Open Folder (Local Drive) option under the application basics.
• Once you clicked on the Open Folder button, it will open the User’s Profile directory.
• Finally, copy the User’s Profile folder and paste it at your desired location like external hard drive or any other location to access it.

Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive with Pro Method

All the above three methods are free to perform. But it requires a technical knowledge to perform above steps to export Thunderbird Emails to Hard Drive. On the other hand, DRS Thunderbird Email Backup Tool doesn’t require technical knowledge and is easy-to-use software. It is an effective and reliable tool to backup your Mozilla Thunderbird profile data to hard drive, external hard drive, computer, or other email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Office 365, etc.

The Bottom Line:

Above in the blog, we have discussed about the Mozilla Thunderbird, its location and the steps to backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive with the help of manual as well as professional help. You can opt for any of the methods to backup Thunderbird emails locally.