What alternative to Mozbackup should we recommend?

[tanstaafl]

Mozbackup is buggy and hasn't been maintained for years. Version 68 of Thunderbird using a different syntax in profiles.ini is also a potential issue. Two of the reasons Mozbackup was popular was it avoided any need to figure out where your profile was stored, and it had a graphical user interface. Nowadays you can find where the profile is using help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder and just copy&paste the contents as needed, but a lot of users are uncomfortable with that.

I'd like to change the recommendation in the KB articles. It would be nice if the same utility worked with Firefox, but that's not essential. They have Firefox Account as an alternative. Whatever we recommend should be actively maintained. That would rule out something like backupthunderbird. It should also be free.

* MailStore Home has a reputation for doing a good job of importing/exporting mail, but it doesn't support backing up/restoring the entire profile.

* TEBE is a legacy add-on that hasn't been maintained for about 8 years. It's doubtful it would work with version 68, and won't work with the next major version.

* Hekasoft backup & restore looks interesting but it only supports Windows. No mention of it in the Wine database.

* KLSMail backup supports Firefox, Thunderbird and several other email clients including Outlook. https://www.techradar.com/how-to/comput ... up-1326057 has lots of screen shots in its review. It only supports Windows. I haven't tried this program yet.

* The ImportExportTools NG add-on supports backing up/restoring a profile (not just exporting/importing folders). It also supports automated backing up of the profile. On the other hand that forces a new user to learn how to install an add-on unless this add-on eventually gets merged into the Thunderbird core code (as has been suggested in the past, but there is no mention in [Maildev] Thunderbird 78 +++ Roadmap).

Thoughts?

[DanRaisch]

Well, KLSMail Backup looks good but. again, apparently only for Windows users. It also doesn't offer backup scheduling, which may be a drawback for the forgetful souls out there.

I don't have much experience with the other options you mentioned. My only backup effort with MozBackup was unsuccessful. I used FEBE for a bit but dropped it when it had not been maintained for a year to two.

I'm fortunate to have purchased a WD external drive several years ago and to also have a secondary internal drive (salvaged from a old Dell tower) so I can do both weekly and daily backups using Acronis True Image 2019.

[LIMPET235]

Hi,
I can only find one free Thunderbird backup program.
eg; > http://backupthunderbird.com/
But, it like all the rest, only work in Windows.

Lots of paid versions though...
> https://www.bitrecover.com/backup/thunderbird/

> https://turgs.com/thunderbird/backup/
They all seem to be around the $39.00 mark with a few a tad more.

Like Dan, I use ACRONIS TI 2019 for my weekly "C" drive back ups.

Never even tried using MozbackUp, so cannot say whether it still works or not.

&... I believe that TEBE is long dead.
FEBE still seems to back up my Firefox stuff though, but not sure if even it is being maintained anymore.
But even with it, I have never used it to restore Firefox.
Always just create a new Profile, when necessary.

Not knowing anything about MAC's, I believe that they have an inbuilt back up app.,
or at least a free one.

[tanstaafl]

If somebody already does a periodic backup of their hard disk I suspect the main reason they'd need a recommended way to backup the profile is because we're suggesting they do something that might trash their profile. The main audience is somebody who rarely, if ever, does a backup. There are a lot of them.

OSX comes with Time Machine (a automated way to backup/restore everything on your hard disk) but I suspect its meant to automatically backup to either an external device or a Apple AirPort Time Capsule. If the user doesn't keep that permanently connected.... I've noticed plenty of threads where the user has a Mac and when I suggest they restore their profile using Time Machine they ignore the suggestion.

I'm using Windows and have a external hard disk that connects via USB. I deliberately don't keep it connected because that makes it vulnerable to malware and/or a power surge. Bad disk sectors is not my main concern. So I can understand why somebody might not have a external drive always connected.

https://blog.macsales.com/32972-time-ma ... h-your-mac

[FFman]

I use Hekasoft. I've just recently moved from Windows 7 to 10 and the Hekasoft restore on Windows 10 performed flawlessly.

[LIMPET235]

I forgot to add..
I use ACRONIS TI & back up to an external HDD which is dis-connected immediately afterwards.
Just sits on the shelf till next week.
I have an "ClockX" alarm that reminds me to connect it up, a few mins before ACRONIS complains.

You just have to get into the habit of dis-connecting your back up drive.

Plus, If they don't heed any advice given here, then it's their problem when they strike trouble.

[DanRaisch]

I'm using Windows and have a external hard disk that connects via USB. I deliberately don't keep it connected because that makes it vulnerable to malware and/or a power surge. Bad disk sectors is not my main concern. So I can understand why somebody might not have a external drive always connected.

I too disconnect the WD drive after the backup each Friday morning. That trick goes back to my days in the corporate world when friends in IT (before cloud storage) would responsible for having data backups, on tape or removable drives, transported off site in case of a major catastrophe. Typically that would be to a firm like Iron Mountain for our US facilities.

[JYLD]

I use "freefilesync" to do a backup of my entire Thunderbird profile (excluding email files that are backed up already on my IMAP server) at the end of each day. The freefilesync backups can be automated if one is too lazy to run it manually at the end of each day. https://freefilesync.org/download.php .

[tanstaafl]

I'll recommend ImportExportTools NG then for users that don't want to just copy&paste or use a generic file/disk backup utility instead.

[DanRaisch]

That will be good.