How to backup thunderbird?

[Ekadant]

Hello friends,

I wish to backup my address book and emails in Thunderbird. Can anybody tell me how to backup all in easy and simple way?

All suggestions are welcome.
Thank you!

[johnson22]

If you use Thunderbird then it's even more important that you back up to ensure you don't accidentally lose your email correspondence and account settings. Because profile gets corrupted or wiped after installing a new extension or a new version of Firefox.
You can use Backup Utility.
MozBackup is a free utility written by Pavel Cvrcek that will automatically back up Firefox and Thunderbird as well as Netscape and the full Mozilla suite. The whole process is driven by a Wizard so easy to use that even raw beginners will be able to set up automatic backups. It also offers encryption of the backup files and a complete push-button restore option. In fact, the most recent versions will also back up Mozilla Sunbird, Flock and Spicebird.

[Techguru01]

Backing up Firefox and Thunderbird manually is as simple as copying their respective profile folders to another location. If you do that, you’ll have a full backup with all your setting and personal data saved. An advantage of manual backup is that you don't need to have Firefox or Thunderbird functioning in order to restore your backup; it's just a case of copying the backup profiles.On Windows 2000/XP machines the locations for your Firefox and Thunderbird profiles are:
Windows 2000

C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\

Windows XP

C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\

Copy the profiles to an external USB drive. You could also use Windows Scheduler or a backup manager to do the job automatically.

[deveritt]

To copy your Mozilla Thunderbird profile in simple way:

• Make sure Mozilla Thunderbird is not running.
• Open your Mozilla Thunderbird profile directory.
• Highlight all files and folders in it.
• Copy the files to the desired backup location.

Now you can restore the profile on another computer, or when problems arise.
Tip: You can compress the files and folders to a zip file and move the zip file instead.

[Trio]

Backing Up Thunderbird with MozBackup
Once MozBackup is installed on your computer, backing up your email is relatively straight forward. There are a couple of steps to take before starting.

If you keep tons of sent items, attachments and other kruft in your inbox, the backup file may be quite large. One way to keep the size down is to first compact the Thunderbird folders. To compact folders, choose File > Compact Folders from the Thunderbird menu. On completion of this step, close Thunderbird before starting your backup.

With Thunderbird closed, launch MozBackup, choose Thunderbird from the list of programs you can backup and click next.

Choose your Thunderbird profile from the list. If you only have one profile on your system, this will likely be default. If you have more than one profile, you can repeat these steps for each profile to make sure no one using your computer loses their mail. At this point, you also choose the backup location. I highly suggest backing up your email to a drive other than the one your email is currently on - otherwise if your computer fails, you will lose both the original mail file and your backup.

On the next screen you will select which components to backup. Unless there's some reason you don't want everything, I suggest backing up all components.

MozBackup will also prompt you to password protect your backup. This is optional, but possibly a good idea for security reasons. MozBackup will backup your Thunderbird files to the directory you specified during configuration.

[raulka]

Dear Ekadant, you don't say which OS you have. If Linux, 2 things are true:
1) There is not a really working software to backup Thunderbird
2) You don't need it. This will do the trick:

cp -RfLp --copy-contents /xxx.../.thunderbird /yyy.../
where xxx & yyy are respective directories for .thunderbird subdirectory
--copy-contents option is essential otherwise you get a mangled backup.

With the same command in reverse restore (delete .thunderbird first)

Linux is beautiful and Debian is its prophet.