Save all emails to hard drive

[cw2009]

How do I save all emails from the web hosted email server to my local hard drive and then copy those to another PC ?

Outlook has a .pst extension to their archives. For Thunderbird I downloaded and installed the extension for "Archive button". But can't get this to save anything to local HDD.

[Daifne]

Is the account POP or IMAP?

[cw2009]

POP

Does Thunderbird have an Archive.pst type file as outlook does ?
I archive outlook emails by copying this file to a backup folder. I'd like to do the same with Thunderbird

If anything happens to my email system I can restore all emails by copying this back to my active folder.

[SK.]

With a POP account, Thunderbird typically downloads all messages to the local hard drive.

Does the information in this knowledge base article help with archiving?

[Guest]

OK, Thank you

But what is the name of the file or folder that Thunderbird saves these too ?

I.e. I'd like to copy and save all my emails to a "safe" folder. Something I can save for later retrieval should my HDD fail. I'd also like to do this so I delete all old emails from the web email server and local hard drive but still be able to restore those if needed.

[SK.]

Check this page for information on Thunderbird profiles - files, location, etc. See this page for Thunderbird's Profile Backup FAQ.

[Guest]

Thank you, I read through most of the "profile" saving articles earlier today.

However I did not see where it saves the actual emails, or description of the file that these are saved to.
Perhaps i missed this and you can point me to a specific reference.
What I read about the profiles are that you may save personal preferences etc., perhaps even an address book ?

So far I have not seen an answer to my original question.

Is it possible that Thunderbird does not support saving all emails to a file that I can copy ?

[Guest]

Specifically the following makes it seem unlikely that anyone could easily do what I'd like to do using thunderbird.

That's a problem...

http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoyneP ... rmats.html
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_and ... Mbox_files

I wanted try Thunderbird, but looks like I have no choice but go back to outlook

[SK.]

Thunderbird is much more flexible than Outlook.

Thunderbird saves all messages to your profile. Specifically, when messages are downloaded to your Inbox, they are placed in the file called "INBOX." When you create a folder, say "Message Storage," and move messages to that folder, they are saved in the file "MESSAGE STORAGE."

If you want to move some or all of your profile to another computer, check this knowledge base article on moving your profile. This applies whether you are moving your profile from one location to another on the same system, or moving your profile to another system.

[Guest]

Thank you,

I'll try the following:

Create new folder c:\archives\Email_080909

Then copy the entire C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird
folder to the new archives folder

If I ever want to restore these I'll save my current profile, and copy the old one back to the current Thunderbird folder

How does that sound ?

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[SK.]

That's one way to do it. I would instead keep your messages within your profile. I have messages in my profile that go back 10 years or more. I have a hierarchy of mail storage folders that keeps everything sorted. That way I neither allow any folder to grow to the point where it could become a problem (Thunderbird has a size limit of 4Gb per folder), nor do I have to restore from an external source when I am looking for a message.

[Daifne]

I hope you also do regular profile backups, SK. Actually, I'm sure you do... don't you?

[SK.]

Yup. I have two external hard drives that I back up to. One contains short- and medium-term storage. The other contains long-term storage.

[Daifne]

Good boy.

[SK.]