The best way to protect your TB profile, with all the mail and address books, is to set a password on your Windows user account. To ensure that mailing lists are sent as BCC, you can try the version of the Use Bcc Instead add-on that is compatible with TB 60.

Thank you.

However, I am not clear on how the Window's password (which I have) protects my Lists independently. Presumably the hackers can get to the TB Address Book?

Also the Use Bcc Instead add-on is no longer supported.

Sorry but I do not think my problem is solved.

It is essential that I protect the Lists - I am instructed to do so.

Best Gilbert

A Windows password prevents anyone who has physical access to your computer from reading any unencrypted data. But if your computer were to give access to remote hackers via malware installed on your computer, it probably wouldn't matter if your data was password-protected or encrypted, as eventually it would be exposed, e.g. when you actually applied a mailing list in TB.

There is nothing on the internet that is 100% safe - only various degrees of protection.

The original Use Bcc add-on is no longer supported, but it has been updated by another author for TB 60.

Hi Gilbert, I don't think Mozilla products have "encryption at rest" for any stored data except passwords secured with a Master Password.

You could consider whole-disk encryption or volume encryption if you need to prevent physical access to Thunderbird data on the drive. Obviously that affects your entire system and may not be appropriate for your environment.

I vaguely recall a product that would encrypt individual files, and then after you entered your password, decrypt on the fly when accessed by programs. I think it was intended more for documents, and I don't know how that would interoperate with Thunderbird; it could be a performance problem.

The following mozillaZine article came up in a search. Some of the suggestions may be obsolete, but others should still work. It is oriented toward the message folders, which you probably should be concerned about as well, but if you protect the entire profile folder, that would cover address book files, too.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Protecting_the_contents_of_the_profile_-_mail

Thanks The range of potential solutions is quite large and they seem to address more general issues. Encrypting files seems closest, but is rather involved. it is probably worth investigating further.

Best Gilbert