From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

• Thunderbird Offline Download
• How To Migrate Thunderbird Email
• Mozilla Thunderbird Offline Installer
• Mozilla Thunderbird Version History

If you want to ensure offline access to your messages, here's how to back up your account with an email client like Thunderbird By Whitson Gordon July 24, 2019, 1 a.m. Offline for a bit? Thunderbird has got you covered The email program Thunderbird by the Mozilla Foundation is available for lots of different operating systems. It is easy to use and follows familiar steps and interfaces.

By default, your mail is stored in your profile folder, along with your address books, settings, addons and other files. If you want to move your mail (but not the entire contents of the profile folder) to a different location, follow the steps below.

• Thunderbird is now part of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. Portions of this content are ©1998–2021 by individual contributors. Portions of this content are ©1998–2021 by individual contributors.
• Thunderbird provides an easy to archive the emails to some local folder location. Since, the Thunderbird account can be configured with both POP and IMAP accounts, archiving emails is slightly different in both protocols. Here, we will discuss the manual approach on how to archive emails from Thunderbird to local folders of your PC for both.

Thunderbird checks that you are not specifying a directory where something might accidentally delete your data or cause other problems, but its not infallible. Before you change where your mail is stored, read Dangerous directories to check whether you are making a safe choice. Also, make certain the directory location(s) are set as exclusions in your antivirus and antimalware software. And think about how this affects backing up your data. Mozbackup for example only backs up directories in the profile.

Thunderbird Offline Download

For accounts using the Global Inbox (Local Folders)

1. Set Thunderbird to use offline mode by selecting File -> Offline -> Work Offline. It only takes a minute to change the local directory but working offline eliminates any chance of downloading a new message while you are doing that.

2. Exit Thunderbird. Create a directory in the new location where you would like to store your mail.

3. Go to your existing profile folder and copy your mail files over to the new location. By default accounts using the Global Inbox have their messages stored in Local Folders, which is located in the 'Mail' folder in your profile folder. Copy the entire contents of 'Local Folders', including all subfolders, over to the new location.

How To Migrate Thunderbird Email

4. Start Thunderbird and go to 'Tools -> Account Settings', and then click on 'Local Folders' in the left pane (you may need to scroll down to see it). Where it says 'Local directory', click on the 'Browse...' button to select the folder you created in step 2 and click the 'OK' button. Verify that the 'Local directory' field shows the correct path to the new storage location of your mail.

5. Set Thunderbird to use online mode again by selecting File -> Offline -> Work Online. Once you're certain that Thunderbird recognizes the new location of your mail, you can go back and delete the old mail files from your profile folder.

For accounts not using the Global Inbox

Mozilla Thunderbird Offline Installer

1. Set Thunderbird to use offline mode by selecting File -> Offline -> Work Offline. It only takes a minute to change the local directory but working offline eliminates any chance of downloading a new message while you are doing that.

2. Exit Thunderbird. Create a directory in the new location where you would like to store your mail. If you are changing the storage location for more than one account, create a separate directory for each account.

3. Go to your existing profile folder and copy your mail files over to the new location. For each account you want to move find that account's folder in the 'Mail' folder (POP3 accounts) or the 'ImapMail' folder (IMAP accounts) and copy its entire contents, including all of its subfolders, over to the new location. If you're not sure where an account stores its folders look in 'Tools -> Account Settings -> [account name] -> Server Settings -> Local directory.

4. Start Thunderbird and go to 'Tools -> Account Settings -> [account name] -> Server Settings'. Where it says 'Local directory', click on the 'Browse...' button to select the folder you created in step 2. Click the 'OK' button and verify that the 'Local directory' field shows the correct path to the new storage location of your mail.

5. If you have more than one mail account, repeat step 4 for each account whose mail you moved in steps 2-3.

6. Set Thunderbird to use online mode again by selecting File -> Offline -> Work Online. Once you're certain that Thunderbird recognizes the new location of your mail, you can go back and delete the old mail files from your profile folder.

See also

Mozilla Thunderbird Version History

External links

• MozillaZine forum thread with information about the settings used.
• Bug report requesting move cache outside of the regular profile folder
• Bug report requesting breaking up the profile for roaming, sharing and performance
• Bug report requesting ability to split prefs into multiple files
• Bug report requesting location of index (global-messages-db.sqlite) be customizable