Sorry, but when you post through help: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/thunderbird/download-and-install/form

it doesn't respect the formatting. And then editing is only allowed in responses

In the settings for each account, there is an entry named "local directory" which tells you the folder associated with that account. You can selectively back up just that folder if you wish, but you'll be on your own when it comes to restoring it.

In theory, to restore, you could copy your backup into your working profile and then adjust the account's Local Directory setting to that location.

Here's the formatted version, which I can access only from "post a reply":

I have 5 email accounts and would like to back up just one. I see: ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxx.default

Underneath there I see a Mail folder and 5 names, so I thought perhaps those corresponded to the accounts I have, but their names are not very recognizable:

• Local Folders
• pop.gmail-1.com
• pof.gmail-1.com.msf
• pop.gmail.com
• smart boxes

My questions are: 1) Is it possible to select what accounts to back up, or do I have to copy the entire email (which I know can be done this way: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data) 2) If so, how? Thanks!

Thanks, Zenos, for your prompt response.

I do see the path: ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/ns1kdvwa.default/Mail/Local Folders

But the accounts that I see there are some other (old accounts). Here's a picture of what my TB is showing (hiding some for privacy :)

As you can see, I have 4 accounts (those are the ones I'm aware of and download to) followed by "Local Folders" which have old accounts (no longer in use). I want to have a backup of the first one (vieja...) and then delete it from there. I just don't know where to look for it under my default/Mail... because when I go there, I only find information about those legacy accounts, but nothing about "vieja"

Please add the troubleshooting information to your post To find the Troubleshooting information:

• Open Help (or click on three-line-icon and select Help)
• Choose Troubleshooting Information
• Use the button Copy to clipboard to select all. Do not check box "Include account names"!
• Paste this in your post.

Application Basics

   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 52.7.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.7.0
   Profile Folder: Show in Finder
   Application Build ID: 20180322145026
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory
   Profiles: about:profiles

 Mail and News Accounts
   account1:
     INCOMING: account1, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext

   account3:
     INCOMING: account3, , (pop3) pop.gmail.com:995, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, true
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:587, alwaysSTARTTLS, passwordCleartext, false

   account5:
     INCOMING: account5, , (imap) imap.googlemail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.googlemail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true

   account6:
     INCOMING: account6, , (im) prpl-gtalk, plain, 0

   account7:
     INCOMING: account7, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, passwordCleartext, true

   account8:
     INCOMING: account8, , (imap) imap.gmail.com:993, SSL, OAuth2
     OUTGOING: , smtp.gmail.com:465, SSL, OAuth2, true

 Crash Reports
   https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-77c8feac-4b76-47a1-ac4d-5b0690180330 (3/30/18)
   https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-bed153f3-bb2a-4616-9bc5-6cf902150107 (1/6/15)
   https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-103bc7c5-6aee-4b5b-8ae5-936be2140419 (4/19/14)
   https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-78a7fc56-d3d2-4241-b01e-ae4932130711 (7/11/13)

 Extensions
   Dictionnaire français «Moderne», 4.3, true, fr-moderne@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org
   Extra Folder Columns, 1.1.5, true, extra-cols@jminta_gmail.com
   Lightning, 5.4.7, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
   LightningButton, 1.5.5, true, lightningbutton@rsjtdrjgfuzkfg.com
   Remove Duplicate Messages, 0.1.14, true, {12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789abc}
   Zhong Wen, 0.2.3.1-signed.1-let-fixed.1-signed, true, {bbfec13e-8cb4-53f4-c852-999eb2a852cb}

 Important Modified Preferences

   Name: Value

     accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0
     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     extensions.checkCompatibility: false
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 52.7.0
     font.internaluseonly.changed: false
     font.minimum-size.x-western: 15
     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.tr: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-baltic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-central-euro: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.tr: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-baltic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-central-euro: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: Candara
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.tr: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-baltic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-central-euro: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Tahoma
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.tr: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-baltic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-central-euro: 14
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     font.size.variable.el: 17
     font.size.variable.tr: 17
     font.size.variable.x-baltic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-central-euro: 17
     font.size.variable.x-cyrillic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-unicode: 17
     font.size.variable.x-western: 18
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.spotlight.firstRunDone: true
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: 456e1c79-f707-fa45-9d43-40bc102a474
     mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled: false
     media.gmp.storage.version.observed: 1
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1523120997
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 63771
     plugin.importedState: true
     plugins.update.notifyUser: true
     print.macosx.pagesetup-2: PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiBlbmNvZGluZz0iVVRGLTgiPz4KPCFET0NUWVBFIHBsaXN0IFBVQkxJQyAiLS8vQXBwbGUvL0RURCBQTElTVCAxLjAvL0VO…
     print.print_bgcolor: false
     print.print_bgimages: false
     print.print_colorspace:
     print.print_command:
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     print.print_duplex: 6488165
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     print.print_orientation: 0
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     print.print_paper_data: 0
     print.print_paper_height: 11.00
     print.print_paper_name:
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     print.print_paper_size_unit: 0
     print.print_paper_width: 8.50
     print.print_plex_name:
     print.print_printer: hp psc 1300 series
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     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_footercenter:
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     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_footerright: &D
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_headercenter:
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_headerleft: &T
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_headerright: &U
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_in_color: true
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_margin_bottom: 0.5
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_margin_left: 0.5
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_margin_right: 0.5
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_margin_top: 0.5
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_oddpages: true
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_orientation: 0
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_pagedelay: 500
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_data: 1
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_height: 11.00
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_size: 7798895
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_size_type: 0
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_size_unit: 0
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_paper_width: 8.50
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_reversed: false
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_scaling: 1.00
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_shrink_to_fit: true
     print.printer_hp_psc_1300_series.print_to_file: false
     privacy.donottrackheader.enabled: true
     security.sandbox.content.tempDirSuffix: {4c961cb5-0057-b04e-8666-e82e32d2dec3}

 Graphics

     GPU #1
     Vendor ID: 0x10de
     Device ID: 0x0a29

     Features
     WebGL Renderer: NVIDIA Corporation -- NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M OpenGL Engine -- 2.1 NVIDIA-10.4.14 310.90.30.05b27

     AzureCanvasBackend: skia
     AzureCanvasAccelerated: 0
     AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: none
     AzureContentBackend: skia
     TileHeight: 512
     TileWidth: 512

 JavaScript

 Incremental GC: 1

 Accessibility

   Activated: 0
   Prevent Accessibility: 0

 Library Versions

     Expected minimum version
     Version in use

     NSPR
     4.13.1
     4.13.1

     NSS
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS Util
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS SSL
     3.28.6
     3.28.6

     NSS S/MIME
     3.28.6
     3.28.6