Using Mozilla Thunderbird has been the smartest move I have ever made when it comes to switching e-mail clients. One thing that I have found a little more challenging for those who are new to this awesome client is the step-by-step for backing up “stuff.” Saving your e-mail and settings is actually not that hard to do once you are shown two of the most effective ways to do it.

Using Mozilla Backup

This is one of the less annoying ways to get your mail and settings saved to the safety of an external hard drive. You will need to first download and then install the program. After this is accomplished, run the program following the very simple prompts as you go. Keep those backups regular!

Back up the program yourself

If you browse Windows Explorer over to C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserNameHere\Application Data\Thunderbird (on Windows XP) you will see file labeled “Registry” and a folder labeled “Profiles.” Save both of these to someplace safe. This way, if you need to recover your Thunderbird goodies or maybe you just want to have all of your existing stuff on another PC, it can be done easily by transplanting this info after a new install of Thunderbird has been completed.

Things to remember when using the manual method

1. The profile you use must match exactly with the profile used with the original settings. For instance, if you use “default,” then use the same profile when reinstalling or transplanting your data to another machine. The Profile Manager can be found in All Programs in the Mozilla Thunderbird folder. Failure to do this will result in the profile not working properly. Also make sure you are restoring to the same version of the program as well.
2. When reinstalling or transplanting, I like to reset my Bayesian spam filters so that I am working from a clean slate. It only takes day or two to retrain them, anyway.
3. I am not going to make any promises, folks. Sometimes things do not always restore right. So you need to make both a manual backup and one using the Mozilla backup utility.

Well, that about covers it. If you are looking for help backing up your passwords stored in Firefox, I wrote up a little piece a while back that you may want to take a gander at. Enjoy! [Matt Hartley]