How to Save Thunderbird Emails to Hard Drive For Future?

  

Written By Sophia Grace

Approved By Marco Devin  

Published On November 20th, 2022

Since cybercrimes like phishing emails and ransomware attacks are on the rise, taking regular backups is an important habit to adopt. Whether you use a cloud-based or a desktop-based client, neither is 100% secure against these cyber-attacks.

Therefore, it has become utmost essential to take backups of your emails; in case of any mishappening or to simply protect yourself against any data harm.

Hence, in this article, we will talk about Thunderbird, a desktop-based client; how you can save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

If you are looking for a free and manual solution for the said problem, keep reading. But first, let’s get familiar with the email client and its prospects.

Therefore, it becomes essential to backup thunderbird emails to external hard drive-in case you come across any data breach. Let’s move on to how you can save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

Ways You Can Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive

Here we are talking about manual methods, so there are essentially three ways you can save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

• Use the “Save As” option.
• Back up your Thunderbird Profile.
• Use the “ImportExportTools NG” Add-On.

Using these methods, you can easily save your emails. Let’s further explain each method.

Method 1: “Save As” Option to Save Thunderbird Emails to Hard Drive

1. Open Thunderbird on your computer.
2. Select the email or multiple emails that you want to export/save.
3. Right-click on the selected emails.
4. Click on the “Save As” option.

   

5. Name the file.
6. In the extensions section, choose the .eml option.
7. Click the Save option to Save save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

With this method, you can export either a single email or all of the emails by holding Ctrl+A. if you want to export the complete folder, then right-click on the Folder >> “ImportExportTools NG” >> “Export All Messages in the Folder” option >> “EML Format” option. And your all emails will save in one folder in EML format.

Method 2: Backup Thunderbird Profile to Hard Drive

Another rather easy method is to backup thunderbird emails to external hard drive. You simply have to copy and then paste your emails to any desired folder or an external hard drive.

The data will save in MBOX format, which users can only open in MBOX-supported email clients like Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Opera Mail, Entourage, etc. Let’s see how this method works to save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive. Let’s see how this method works to save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

Follow the given instructions.

1. Launch the Thunderbird email client on your computer.
2. Click on the Display Thunderbird Menu (three horizontally stacked lines) and choose the “Help” icon.

   

3. Now select the “Troubleshooting Information” option. A new window will appear.

   

4. Click on the Open Folder button. This will launch the user’s directory.

   

5. In the user’s directory, select Mail.

   

6. Copy all the data from there.

   

7. Paste that data into your desired folder to save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.

Method 3: Use The ImportExport Tools Add-On

This method requires the installation of an add-on. A lot of users might not have it installed beforehand. Hence, this method is divided into two parts. If you have the add-on installed in your thunderbird already, feel free to skip to Part 2. The users who do not have the add-on installed, follow the steps given below.

Part 1: Installing the Add-On

1. Open Thunderbird on your computer.
2. Click on the Display Thunderbird Menu.
3. Select Add-ons and themes and a new window will appear.
4. Type ImportExportNG in the search bar to save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive.
5. In the search results, select the first option.
6. Click on the add to Thunderbird option in front of it.

Now the add-on is installed in your thunderbird. Let’s proceed to the next part to backup thunderbird emails to external hard drive.

Part 2: Exporting the Emails Using ImportExport Add-on

1. Right-click on the folder that you want to export.
2. Click on ImportExportTools NG >> Export all Messages in The Folder.

   

3. Save the messages in any format you want.

An incredibly easy method that gives you multiple format options to backup Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive. You can export your emails in EML, PDF Sheets (CSV), etc.

Conclusion

Saving your data offline is essential to prevent and protect against data loss issues. Backing up your data regularly is a great habit that users must adopt. In this article, we explained three manual and free ways to save Thunderbird emails to Hard Drive. You can use whichever fits your needs.