Are you searching for a viable solution to Download Attachments from Thunderbird? If you are a Mozilla Thunderbird user, you may have faced the issue of “Thunderbird not downloading attachments”. Here in this blog, we will know the procedures to tackle the issue if Thunderbird does not open attachments.
To extract attachments from Thunderbird, one can go for either a manual procedure or a professional Thunderbird Backup Tool.
Mozilla Thunderbird is a well-known free email management platform, which lets you work with email, calendars, contacts, and others. It is an open-source cross-platform email client which enables you to manage multiple email accounts from one desktop. It is user-friendly and simple to customize and maintain.
Due to different reasons and field requirements users need to download attachments from Mozilla Thunderbird, and store them in different folders. So, let’s know the manual procedure to extract all attachments from Thunderbird email client.
Manual Methods to Download Attachments from Thunderbird
There are two methods to download email attachments from Thunderbird in a folder manually- the first is Individual downloads and the other is using Add-ons.
#1. Individual Downloads
Using this method, you can download attachments of each email using a habitual process. Still, it will be a time-consuming process and users need to repeat the same process again and again for every single email.
- Open Mozilla Thunderbird application on your system.
- Double-click on the email which has an attachment, to open that email message.
- Look for the attachment in the email message and click Save.
- Save Attachment dialog box appears. Select the destination folder to save the file and click Save.
But this process is lengthy for multiple attachments, so here is an easy step-by-step manual solution to extract attachments from Thunderbird, that is, using Add-ons.
#2. Download Email Attachments from Thunderbird Using Add-ons
Individual downloads are a hectic process which reflects the need for a Thunderbird attachment file extractor or downloader. Let’s learn the procedure using the Thunderbird attachment extractor. Follow the steps as mentioned.
- First, download the Thunderbird Attachment Extractor add-on into your system.

- Open the Thunderbird email client in your system and select ‘Add-ons’.
- Next, open the Settings Icon and then select ‘Install Add-on from File..’
- Open the .xpi file, the Thunderbird Email Attachment Extractor.
- A Software Installation dialog box appears with a Safety tip ‘Install add-ons only from authors whom you trust’. Click Install now.
- Now Restart Mozilla Thunderbird for further installation.
- Right-click on any email folder and select Extract All Attachments to… And then click on Browse.
- Select any Folder in your system to save the extracted Thunderbird attachments.
- Attachment Extractor works in progress to download attachments.
- All the attachments are saved in the selected folder.
Advantages of Thunderbird Attachment Extractor Add-Ons
- Thunderbird attachment extractor add-on can download all types of attachment formats such as DOCX, HTML, image, PDF, EMLX, PST, XLS, OST, etc.
- It is developed by Mozilla Foundation, making it a trustworthy add-on for users, and is 100% secure.
- The attachment extractor add-on costs no money.
- It is easy to use and understand.
- It extracts the attachments without hampering their quality.
- Also, it is virus free, thus speedy to work.
- It facilitates users to save attachments at desired locations as well as allows them to back up email attachments to external storage.
Drawbacks of Thunderbird Attachment Extractor
The manual procedure mentioned above is limited to working with some specific versions of the Thunderbird attachment extractor and may fail to work for the remaining versions. That is why the best-suggested method is using a professional tool that is more versatile than a manual procedure.
Professional Tool to Download Attachments from Thunderbird
DRS Thunderbird Migration Tool will help users to download attachments from Mozilla Thunderbird with some extra features, to reduce user effort and make it easy and simple.
Some extraordinary features of the Tool are:
- Allows users to migrate email to different email accounts.
- Provides an advanced mail filter feature that is you can migrate mail within a selected date range.
- Facilitates you to migrate emails precisely and accurately without attachments.
- This tool auto-detects Thunderbird profile, as soon as launched in the system.
- This tool provides the Save in the Same folder option, so you can save Thunderbird profile backup in the source folder.
Before proceeding with the steps, the user should make sure Mozilla Thunderbird is installed in the system. The steps are as follows-
- Firstly, download the DRS Thunderbird Mail Backup Tool, and install it on your system.
- Select the Mailbox profile that you want to back up from the dropdown and click Next.
- Select the mailbox folder and click Next to proceed.
- In the Save/Backup/Migrate As a field, select the destination file format and email client. And select other additional properties like mail filters, custom folder names, etc, and click Convert to initialize the process.
- After the scanning process is done, you will get a message on your screen ‘Process has Completed’.
Conclusion
To download attachments from Thunderbird, the professional Thunderbird backup tool is the best method over the manual procedure. This tool helps you save time and effort and can be used by any non-technical user too.