How can I create a backup of all my emails on my harddrive, so I'd have them if my email account was deleted?
I want to create a back-up of all my emails - sent, received, from multiple accounts - on my hard drive. I see how to save profile information, but how do I download all the content of each email account and create a backup?
All Replies (3)
If you want a backup that is independent of the server (and this is really only a concern with IMAP-connected accounts) then I think you need to move or copy the messages to the Local Folders account and then do your profile backup.
Whilst Thunderbird does cache messages so they are available when offline, it doesn't necessarily cache them all and so there is no guarantee that a backup of the local data will include all the messages in an IMAP-connected account.
Why do you think an account might be deleted? Under what circumstances would this happen? Personally I use IMAP-connected accounts to store data "in the cloud" as a precaution against local hardware failure.
OTOH, if all your accounts use POP then you already have all your data and your backup of your profile is all you need.
I'm trying to create an offline copy of all emails for legal purposes that I could hand to someone else (like a lawyer) to go through WITHOUT giving them access to my server/account.
How do I copy to local folders on my computer? I don't see the answer to my question.
You have an account called Local Folders in Thunderbird. This account is stored locally, on your local storage device, and independent of any servers.
Copying messages to this account obliges Thunderbird to download messages from the server so you can be confident you have all their content.
The ImportExportTools add-on might be useful for bulk export from Thunderbird to an alternative format. The .eml format is probably the best for forensic purposes since it is a verbatim copy of the entire original message.