How to Backup and Convert Thunderbird Emails to PST File? - Solved

Detailed Explanation

Mozilla Thunderbird – A thriving email application available for Windows, Mac & Unix-like systems. It stores emails inside MBOX files, precisely, the files without extension. So in case you want to backup Thunderbird email messages, you will require to locate and copy these MBOX files. And if the desired export format is PST (for Outlook) and not MBOX, then a quality tool is required.

Read ahead and understand how to backup Thunderbird emails as well as export Thunderbird to PST along with other essential information.

Association of Mozilla Thunderbird Mailbox

From the brief explanation given above, it is clear that Thunderbird uses the MBOX file format to save its mailbox items. To be precise, these MBOX files store emails and attachments of Mozilla Thunderbird.

The PST file, however, is not connected to Thunderbird by any means. It is the proprietary format of Microsoft that is used only in an Outlook email client to store mailbox items. Also, unlike MBOX, PST stores different items along with emails, like contacts, calendars, to-dos, journals, etc.

Normally, users require Thunderbird emails in PST format when they need to access those emails in the Outlook platform. But this gets really tricky because there is no official way to convert Thunderbird to PST. Neither Outlook nor Thunderbird provides such native options to import each other’s file format. Therefore, we will be using a quality professional solution for this task.

Now, let us move on to the next section where will be backup Thunderbird emails.

Solution to Backup Thunderbird Emails on Windows System

The brief procedure involves opening the given default location for Thunderbird files on your system:

C:/Users/admin/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/

And afterward locating the MBOX files within multiple sub-folders. This location may vary according to your Windows version as well. The more effective procedure to locate and backup Thunderbird emails of each email account is as follows:

1. Run Thunderbird. Go to Tools menu and select Account settings.
2. A window will open showcasing every email account configured in Mozilla Thunderbird.
3. Simply click on Server Settings corresponding to an email account. You will find the Local Directory containing the location of mailbox of the selected email account.



4. Copy this local directory path, paste it on Windows Explorer and find the exact location of mailbox files.
5. Now copy all the MBOX files (along with SBD folders), you can save to a separate location as a backup.
6. Repeat the steps for each email account. This way you will back up the entire Thunderbird data and won’t have to look randomly in multiple directories for each file

SBD folders are responsible for creating folder hierarchy in Mozilla Thunderbird, so along with the MBOX files found at the given location, make sure to copy all the SBD folders (if any) as well.

Important Note: If you want to take backup and later restore the data on another Thunderbird client, copy all the contents of folder with a name similar to xxxx.default. Then, on the other computer create a new account, open its profile folder, and replace everything with the previously copied content.

Steps to Export Thunderbird to PST for Free:

1. Run Mozilla Thunderbird and open the desired mailbox.
2. Select the emails that you wish to export in PST file.
3. Right-click and select the "Save As" option.
4. Choose the desired folder to store the Thunderbird emails and click on “Select Folder” option.
5. Now, run MS Outlook and create a new folder in it.
6. Either import the saved Thunderbird emails or use "drag and drop" to place them on MS Outlook interface.
7. Once all the emails are visible in Outlook, go to "File" menu.
8. Select "Open & Export", followed by "Import/Export" option.
9. Select "Export to a file" and click "Next".
10. Now, select "Outlook Data file" and click "Next" again.
11. Choose the mailbox folder that contains Thunderbird emails to export to PST.
12. Set other settings as per preference and click on "Finish" to get the PST files.

It is clear that the manual method is time-consuming and not feasible for large mailbox migration. So users are recommended to go for a quality conversion tool.

Convert Thunderbird to PST Using Professional Software

If you want to access the Thunderbird file in Microsoft email client i.e., Outlook, a quality tool required. This tool allows to export Thunderbird to PST in bulk without compromising the email quality and integrity. Furthermore, it allows you to retain the exact folder structure as it was before conversion.

In Thunderbird export to PST from MBOX files using the following steps:

1. Open Thunderbird to PST Converter software interface.



2. Click Add File to open a list of options that contains Thunderbird.



3. Select Thunderbird and choose one of the given two scanning options:
   • Default Profile Configured allows the tool to directly fetch profile data from the configured Thunderbird email client. Hence no need to take a backup, simply go ahead with the conversion.
   • Select from file / folder option provides a way to scan the backup MBOX files of Thunderbird to later convert into PST.



4. Proceed with the selected option and the tool will preview all the Thunderbird emails. Click on the Export button in the top left section of the tool.



5. The next window displays multiple export options. Simply select the PST as the export type and choose to export all data or only selective files as per requirement.



6. Now, set the location where you want to export Thunderbird to PST file. In case the source files are large, you can also choose to break them into smaller files with Split PST option.



7. Click on the Export button to proceed with converting Thunderbird to PST for Outlook. The tool will display the process details as shown in the screenshot.



8. A message will confirm the successful process completion. You may now go to the destination folder selected in step 8 and view all your converter PST files.

Note: To create a single PST file for multiple Thunderbird mailbox, tick the use folder mode while importing MBOX files in the software. By default, the tool generates PST files corresponding to each MBOX file.

Thunderbird converter tool is available to download for free as a demo version. It will allow converting 25 emails from Thunderbird to PST file. You can upgrade to full license upon experiencing satisfactory experience.

Apart from exporting Thunderbird to PST file format, the tool also supports MBOX files of more than 19 email applications, including Apple Mail, Power Mail. Eudora, Spicebird, Entourage, and many more. Besides, you can also export data into multiple file formats including PST, EML, MSG, HTML & NSF file format.

Brief Procedure for Both Free and Paid Methods