How to Create Backup for your Thunderbird Profile?

Create backup for your Thunderbird Profile :

Thunderbird saves personal information such as messages, passwords and user preferences in a set of files called a “profile“, which is stored in a different location from the Thunderbird program files.
Many people use Thunderbird as their email client for many benefits, including advanced spam filtering, a good reputation for being trusted, the ability to customize, a high level of security, support for email protocols such as SMTP, POP3 and IMAP.

What is a profile in Thunderbird?

In Thunderbird, the profile stores two main sets of items. First, it stores your local mail, and possibly copies of messages that reside on the mail server . Second, it stores any changes you make when using Thunderbird (for example, changes to account settings).

When you install Thunderbird it creates a profile called “Default“. This profile will be used automatically until you invoke the profile manager and create a new profile.

How to find your profile in Thunderbird :

• Click the menu button or menu bar.
• From the Help menu, click Troubleshooting Information.
• In the Application Basics section, click on Profile Folder Open folder.
• Windows Explorer will show the name of the window profile as well as the path for it.

How to finding your profile without opening Thunderbird :

• Press Windows Key+R on the keyboard. A Run dialog open.
• Type in: %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\

• Click OK. A window will open containing profile folders
• Double-click the profile folder you wish to open. If you only have one profile, its folder would have “default” in the name.

 In this article we will help you with the step by step process by which you can create a backup for your Thunderbird profile.

Method 1 :-

1. Open your Mozilla Thunderbird. 
2. Select the menu button or bar, you will see the option of help in the drop down list. Click on it and then click to select troubleshooting information to proceed. 
3. Next, the troubleshooting tab will get open. It will show you the Application basics section.
4. Under the application basic section, you need to select the Open folder which is located on the right of the profile folder. Click on it.
5. A new window will open and you just need to go one level up of your profile folder.
6. Here you will see folder whose format will be show similar like *****.default, just need to make sure it has the extension as default. Right click on it and select copy to proceed.
7. Now the last step is to paste that folder, simply by right click and select paste on the location where you want to create your backup for your Mozilla thunderbird profile on your computer or you can paste it to your external hard drive or pen drive.
8. To restore your backup you need to copy everything from the backup folder named as *****.default saved on the backup location by you and then you need to paste everything to the location which will appear when you click on the open folder under application basic section. As followed in the above steps.

Method 2:- Backup a profile

To back up your profile, first close Thunderbird if it is open and then copy the profile folder to another location.

1. Locate your profile folder, as explained above.
2. Shut down Thunderbird.
3. Go to one level above your profile’s folder, i.e. to %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\
4. Right-click on your profile folder (e.g. abcde.default), and select Copy.
5. Right-click the backup location (e.g. a USB-stick or a blank CD-RW disc), and select Paste.

So it was a simple task and does not require any expert, you can do the task yourself. All you need to remember is when you are restoring your back you need to close your Mozilla Thunderbird. Once you will restart your Mozilla Thunderbird you will see all your data which was backed up will appear on your Thunderbird profile.