Saturday, October 5, 2013

Thunderbird backup and restore

I have been using Thunderbird as a mail client for a while now. Have been also not-so-regularly backing up the mail profile. Found out recently how convenient Thunderbird makes it to backup and restore mail, contacts & even calendar.
I will not go details of how to restore the profile, mails and contacts because there is tons of help available on:
MozillaZine
Thunderbird Help

But in short, the mail folders, contacts, preferences, calendar data are simple, and mostly single, data files that can be easily replaced and Thunderbird will happily recognize and use them when it starts. Oh, you have to remember to close any open Thunderbird session before replacing files physically.

Another useful program to remember is "thunderbird.exe -ProfileManager" which you can run from Windows start menu > Run... option. It lets you manage & switch between multiple profiles.

Thank you Mozilla for a great product! And who says there is no free lunch?? :-)