Best Approach to Save Thunderbird Emails To External Hard Drive

Written By Edwin Stark
Updated on November 21st, 2024

Summary: Thunderbird is a free Email client and an open-source cross-platform application for managing email, newsfeeds, and chats. Thunderbird has many remarkable features as it provides you full ownership and control over your email. Due to some security reasons like the risk of data theft or data disaster increases etc., users want to save Thunderbird emails to the external hard drive. The main reason to export Thunderbird emails is to protect valuable data and to make an additional copy. Therefore, in this article we discussed different manual method and professional Thunderbird Email Backup Tool, therefore you can choose the right method according to your need.

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Causes To Save Thunderbird Emails To External Hard Drive

Elimination of Thunderbird mailbox data unexpectedly.
Virus attacks can occur.
To prevent mailbox data from corruption.
Sometimes users want to switch data from Thunderbird to another place.
Disaster in the user’s system can also be a major reason.

Different Approach to Backup Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive

Users use many methods till they reach the results. Sometimes some users prefer a manual backup process and some users want to get results from the direct method. Here, according to the comfort of the users, both methods have been mentioned.

You can select all emails from a specific folder

Backup Thunderbird Emails Locally
Use Add-on To Save Thunderbird emails
Automated Approach to Backup Thunderbird Emails

Backup Thunderbird Emails Locally

First, start the Mozilla Thunderbird on your system.
Now, choose and open the email you want to save to disk. (Note: You can choose all emails from a specific folder)
After that, click on the Menu button to reveal the drop-down list.
Now, click on the save as section.
After that, In the Save As button, select the File and click on it.
Determine the address location and specify the folder name for the selected email.
Finally, hit on the Save tab to back up the Thunderbird email on the system.

Use Add-on To Save Thunderbird emails

Start, Thunderbird and fix the ImportExportTools NG add-on in it.
After the plugin is installed, restart Thunderbird.
Now, select a folder that you want to back up (like Inbox) and right-click on it.
Select, ImportExportTools NG, then Export Folder, and then EML Format to save Thunderbird emails to your hard drive in EML format.
Select, a place to keep the files and click Select Folder.

After completing the process your emails will be saved as a backup on your external hard drive. Now, you can open these files directly in Mozilla Thunderbird at any future date.

Drawbacks of The Manual Method To Save Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive

Some lines of the manual method have been mentioned above which some users may understand and for some users, this method can be quite tedious. So, there are some drawbacks of manual methods which are being mentioned further.

This method takes a lot of time and attempts of users.
Due to various steps of this method, non-technical users have to pay a lot of attention.
Only expert users can easily access the result.
Here you can’t back up your data in various file formats like PST, MSG, etc.

Automated Approach to Save Thunderbird Emails to External Hard Drive

To avoid the limitations of the manual methods, users can get another solution here. Users can use this fast and secure Sysinfo Thunderbird Email Backup Tool to save Thunderbird emails to an external hard drive. Users can protect all Thunderbird email profiles into different file formats, such as PST, EML, EMLX, OST, MSG, DOC, PNG, PDF, CSV, etc., and also exclude duplicate or repetitive items throughout the backup process.

Conclusion

In the article, both methods have been discussed here. Often, not every user can manage the manual method because it can be a major task for some non-technical users. For this situation, other direct methods have been provided to save Thunderbird emails to the external hard drive. What to do if Thunderbird Not Downloading New Emails. The Demo version of this Thunderbird mail backup Tool enables users to backup 50 emails per folder.

About The Author:

Edwin Stark

Edwin Stark is a Technical Content Writer who specializes in writing about databases, e-mail recovery, and e-mail migration solutions. He loves researching and developing content that helps database administrators, organizations and novices to fix multiple problems.