Mozilla VPN is currently experiencing an outage. Our team is actively working to resolve the issue. Please check the status page for real-time updates. Thank you for your patience.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Access Old backed Up Email Account

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

more options

1) I have old emails from my previous hosting company that are no longer active. I just want to be able to access these off line. Is this possible to reflect on and source if needed. I have numerous years to go back to. 2) Also can I have more than one email account backed up on Thunderbird. I would like to access these off line if there is a power outage or something where the internet is down. Is this possible or can it only be one account?

1) I have old emails from my previous hosting company that are no longer active. I just want to be able to access these off line. Is this possible to reflect on and source if needed. I have numerous years to go back to. 2) Also can I have more than one email account backed up on Thunderbird. I would like to access these off line if there is a power outage or something where the internet is down. Is this possible or can it only be one account?

All Replies (1)

more options

I would say, we need a bit more info. Have you used Thunderbird before ?

re :I have old emails from my previous hosting company that are no longer active.

You do not mention where those emails are currently located. Did you previously use Thunderbird to access those emails? Are these emails currently in folders in an imap or Pop account in Thunderbird? Or have you saved them as *.eml files in a folder outside of Thunderbird? Or do you have a backup copy of an old imap account stored outside of Thunderbird. Are the emails currently stored in mbox format or eml format or something else ?

re Also can I have more than one email account backed up on Thunderbird You can have as many mail accounts for as many email addresses as you want. There is no limits.

But it depends upon what you mean as 'backed up'. IMAP accounts can never be considered a copy or a backup because by design Imap account folders synchronise with server to show only what is on server. You also need to make sure you are downloading full copies and not headers should you want to create a backup copy. Pop accounts by design access server and download full copies. So emails are independent of server. The default 'Local Folders' mail account is very useful for storing emails in general. Emails in Local Folders mail account are also independent of any server. You can keep emails from old accounts in 'Local Folders' mail account as reference.

But a backup means creating an independent copy which can be used in the event of data loss.

re : I would like to access these off line if there is a power outage or something where the internet is down. You can access any emails in any mail account provided you have full copies of emails downloaded and stored in Thunderbird.