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

Thunderbird storage - Is there a way to tell thunderbird to save to my local PC EVERY email that I send and receive?

  • 8 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by david

more options

Hi Fiends!

Is there a way to tell thunderbird to save to my local PC EVERY email that I send and receive? (Gmail) as well as having Gmail store it in the cloud?

And if so, where is the location of this storage?

Thank you!

Susan

Hi Fiends! Is there a way to tell thunderbird to save to my local PC EVERY email that I send and receive? (Gmail) as well as having Gmail store it in the cloud? And if so, where is the location of this storage? Thank you! Susan

Modified by Wayne Mery

Chosen solution

I didn't say that. I said '... requires a separate utility to extract to text' Do a web search for convert mbox to text and there are a number of solutions presented. You would need to do this periodically, replacing prior versions, to avoid duplication, or possibly add a new folder periodically to account. Otherwise, each download becomes bigger than the last one. I hope this info is helpful to you.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (8)

more options

Go to tools>account settings>syncronization&storage. Tick the box to keep messages in all folders and also click the Advanced button to tick the folders you want saved locally. Messages will be stored in the named folders you are using online.

more options

Thank you for the reply. Is it correct that thunderbird stores the emails here:

C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ri3w11uh.default-release\ImapMail\imap.gmail.com\**foldername**

??

I can see the foldername there, but the file in that folder looks like bianry etxt. Is there a way to see a regular text version of all the mails?

more options

Yes, they're stored there and are readable with Thunderbird. If you want to read them via other software, you will need to export the messages as .eml files and then convert them to text files. Since you want to keep all of them, you would likely need to do this periodically, such as exporting weekly to ensure all files are retained.

more options

Thank you again. Excuse my supreme ignorance:

Where is the export command to export an entire folder?

TIA

more options

scult1 said

Hi Fiends! Is there a way to tell thunderbird to save to my local PC EVERY email that I send and receive?

Another possible interpretation is you want a backup of these emails. If what you want is a backup, then synchronization to local storage isn't the solution.

more options

TB has a default ability to right-click on one or more messages in message list and 'save as...' to individual files with eml suffix, which would then need another utility to convert to text. There is an addon called ImportExportTools that offers an Export function, but it exports entire folder into an mbox (binary) format that then requires a separate utility to extract to text. Both of these are clumsy solutions to your desire to have all messages accessible outside of TB.

more options

So am I correct that a tool to convert Mbox to text DOES NOT EXIST?!

Seems a little odd....

more options

Chosen Solution

I didn't say that. I said '... requires a separate utility to extract to text' Do a web search for convert mbox to text and there are a number of solutions presented. You would need to do this periodically, replacing prior versions, to avoid duplication, or possibly add a new folder periodically to account. Otherwise, each download becomes bigger than the last one. I hope this info is helpful to you.