Comments on: Thunderbird Tip: How to archive old messages

By: Subhendu Sarkar

Subhendu Sarkar — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:03:24 +0000

Is it possible with Thunderbird to archive certain mails contained in a directory and view them afterwards. I do not want to archive the mails inside the existing Thunderbird setup but I will copy them in a DVD, for example. Can I access them as and when required with Thunderbird in future?

To put it more concretely, suppose I have an email account now which I want to discard but keep a copy of the mails. I need to make a backup of those mails in such a way that Thunderbird can read them in future, if required. Please note that from now on I will be using a new email account and Thunderbird would be configured with the new email account.

I know the technique of copying the files in the “xxxxxxx.default” folder but in such a case the entire profile is copied and for my case I will again get my old profile (for the OLD email account) back but I will loose my new profile (for the NEW email account) !!

By: Mike Marion

Mike Marion — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:27:43 +0000

All the archive answers are interesting but…
I need a way to view/search these archived messages at a later date without switching files and profiles etc.
Ideally a way to open an “external” source under the “folders” directory window.

Any suggestions?

Mike

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:43:42 +0000

“The idea was to create a new folder, name it accordingly and move it out of the Thunderbird profile folder. I created a folder sent-071101 and moved all sent mails into the folder that were older than one month. This can be done by simply dragging and dropping those mails into the new folder.”

There is a quicker way to do this. Close Thunderbird first. Then go to the profile folder on your computer and sipmly rename the folder called “Sent” to “sent-071101″ or whatever you want. You can then move the renamed folder somewhere else if you want to, or if you leave it in the profile folder, it will show up as a new folder when you restart Thunderbird.

When you restart Thunderbird, it will create an empty Sent folder automatically. (This works for all the standard Thunderbird folders.)

By: David

David — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:39:04 +0000

Hi guys,
Apologies to bring this back a level. How do you configure T-bird to re-access the archives once they have been made? I had a prob with T-bird, installed again. Now I can’t view past mails, despite them being “archived” in the original profile folder.
Cheers

By: 如何在Thunderbird中备份旧邮件 » Ghacks CN

如何在Thunderbird中备份旧邮件 » Ghacks CN — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:52:49 +0000

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By: Ace_NoOne

Ace_NoOne — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:09:42 +0000

> Well you can basically use any backup software that you like and
> just schedule the backup of the complete profile folder.

Yeah, but ideally, there’d be truly separate “modules” (I believe Outlook allows you to create separate files for archiving - but I despise Outlook, so I wouldn’t know for sure).

As for the extension: I’d love to see someone taking over, perfecting the code. (I’m not too good with Mozilla extensions… )

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:06:43 +0000

Well you can basically use any backup software that you like and just schedule the backup of the complete profile folder.

I will take a look at the extension tomorrow. Thanks for posting that.

By: Ace_NoOne

Ace_NoOne — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:07:25 +0000

I’m also still looking for a good way of archiving Thunderbird messages externally (other than using MozBackup).

A while ago I’d created an extension to help me keep my inbox(es) clean:
One-Click Archiver: archiving mails to correct sub-folders
I haven’t had the inclination to perfect the code, but it’s been doing wonders for me, for almost a year now.