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My Thunderbird Imap mailbox is close to 1TB - need a solution. (win10)

millstreet79
millstreet79
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After 20+ years with Mozilla / Thunderbird my xxxx.defaut/IMAP folder is 705GB.

I'm an image editor for a website and have had to receive and send images all of which I've saved - and need occasional historical access.

I have remote storage options (NAS and Cloud based).

What's the best way to move these files to a backup?

Any thoughts and "how to's" would be appreciated...

After 20+ years with Mozilla / Thunderbird my xxxx.defaut/IMAP folder is 705GB. I'm an image editor for a website and have had to receive and send images all of which I've saved - and need occasional historical access. I have remote storage options (NAS and Cloud based). What's the best way to move these files to a backup? Any thoughts and "how to's" would be appreciated...

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

I determined the issue with the size - it's a problem with compacting email folders that has created approx 640GB of NSTMP files. Having deleted the problem NSTMP files I can leave my image files in place.

Thanks for the help!

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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A simple approach (possibly too simple?) would be to use the importexport addon and select to export to plaintext with attachments. That separates message content from attached images. Once done, you may need to merge the various sub-directories of images. You would then be free to store wherever you prefer.

BEFORE doing that, select File>offline and select an option to ensure all content is downloaded.

millstreet79
millstreet79 Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

I determined the issue with the size - it's a problem with compacting email folders that has created approx 640GB of NSTMP files. Having deleted the problem NSTMP files I can leave my image files in place.

Thanks for the help!