Patricia Van Roon said

You should also be more up front with your contact. It took over 30 minutes to find this. I kept going in circles. If you don't want people to contact you, then don't offer contact help. I'm sure you will lose a lot of customers if you do this though.

You might try pressing F1 in Thunderbird, the universal windows help shortcut. Or using the help link on the help menu in Thunderbird.

Patricia Van Roon said

I backed up my Sent.msf file to a different drive on my computer but I would like to back it up to an external hard drive. Is there a way to parse the file so that I can move the file to the external drive? I cannot find anything online that allows this.

Lets start at the beginning the sent.msf file is a simple index to the email in the sent folder. It is not the mail and should certainly not be of a size to need a size reduction. For example my inbox is 3.5Gb in size. The MSF file that indexes that is some 20mb in size. Similar sizes relative to the folder are normal. Your send mail will be stored in a file called sent, with no file extension. It will appear in the windows file manager either above or below the MSF file, but in the same folder.

The import export add-on has a good routine backup for profiles as well as tools that allow you to export mail into other common formats. These common formats also include Thunderbird's native mbox format and EML. Both widely understood email formats.

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

1. I know where help is. What you can't find is anyone to contact. Now that I know where it is, I can find it faster. 2. If you don't know the answer, that is quite alright. I have other options I can do myself. None of your suggestions answered the question. Please when I ask a question, would it be possible for the respondent to answer it first before going into long answers that do not help. The question I asked required a 'yes' or 'no' answer. 3. Thunderbird should add this ability to their programming tasks. It would make a nice addition and I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.

re :1. I know where help is. What you can't find is anyone to contact.... If you don't want people to contact you, then don't offer contact help.

Are you talking about actually trying to telephone someone ? There is no 'contact' as in 'chatting over a phone' and nowhere does it say that is possible. It states very clear: For help with any of our products, including Firefox (for desktop, Android and iOS) and Thunderbird, please visit our support site.

You need to be aware that: Thunderbird is a free product. This support forum offers free help to thunderbird users. The support forum is manned by unpaid volunteers from all around the world offering their free time to help fellow users. All donations are used to develop Thunderbird program, fix bugs, run this website, etc etc. There are no people being paid to sit in paid offices accepting calls from all around the world.

2. If you don't know the answer, that is quite alright. I have other options I can do myself. None of your suggestions answered the question. Please when I ask a question, would it be possible for the respondent to answer it first before going into long answers that do not help. The question I asked required a 'yes' or 'no' answer. I backed up my Sent.msf file to a different drive on my computer but I would like to back it up to an external hard drive. Is there a way to parse the file so that I can move the file to the external drive?

The question you asked implied you did not fully understand what the 'Sent.msf' file actually contained. Hence the additional information.

The answer is 'yes', backup/copy the file to where ever you want.

The process of Backing up/copying any file to any location whether it be a different drive on the computer or to an external hardrive is identical. Although why you want to backup an index file rather than emails or profile data or address books etc etc, is more unusual.

Exit Thunderbird. Access profile. Locate account name and copy the file to where ever you want.

Matt offered good advice and I would thank him for the volunteered information as it was done with good intent.

re :3. Thunderbird should add this ability to their programming tasks. It would make a nice addition and I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.

You have not stated what you are trying to achieve. An idex file is useful to Thunderbird, but not much use to you. Copying an index file implies there is more to this query and it would help your situation if you could be clear about what you are trying to achieve.

Are you trying to perform a backup of your entire Profile name folder, so that all mail account data, emails, address book, preferences etc are backed up?

Are you wanting to move the location of your profile name folder from the default location to a different drive in order to save space on the 'C' drive ?

These 'backup' type of options are already available: Any email can be saved as an .eml file to a folder outside of Thunderbird - use the right click on email and 'Save as' option.

Manual backup of the 'Thunderbird' profile (not program) folder will backup everything including the 'profiles.ini' file. Exit Thunderbird before performing this.

Using 'ImportExportTools' addon extension offers saving of emails in other formats. It also offers exporting a folder and also offers the option of backing up of the entire profile. Matt has already provided that information.

Any address book can be exported and saved as LDIF or comma separated .csv files. In 'Address Book', select an address book, Tools > Export

To clarify, by 'anyone to contact', I meant a place where I could get an answer to a question. I put in the question in the help, my answer is not found, then I try to find some way to 'contact' anyone to request an answer. This is hidden. Testing the help process on people that have not used the "help" before would provide good feedback for improvements. I am quite aware that Thunderbird is a free product. I stated quite clearly that I'm trying to back up my msf file to an external drive but it is too big. Please do not worry, I will figure this out myself. Matt did nothing wrong and I don't believe I said he did anything wrong. He didn't seem to know the answer so all I was asking is that I get a "yes" or "no" response first so I don't have to read information that does not apply.

Given you are on the same web site pressing F1 takes you to. I think your issue is with the forum software. As we are allowed to use this free from Mozilla. Please if you have issues with the forum software, take it up with Mozilla. They do have a company, registered offices and phones.

Be aware however if you make a support request to them about Thunderbird itself the best that you can expect is them to email me. So you will how gone full circle.

I stated quite clearly your MSF file is an index. I delete mine quite regularly. MSF files contain exactly no information that can not be regenerated when the program restarts, excepting for some tags when Thunderbird is dealing with an IMAP server that is so old it does not implements them.

So here is the LD:DR version for you. You are backing up something that has no value as a backup. If you tried to restore the MSF file without the relevant data files it would be replaced as soon at Thunderbird starts up. So instead of shooting the messenger, accept that backing up an MSF file is a total waste of time. You do not want to read, but your question is not yes or no. It is a why would anyone ever want to do something like that?

Perhaps you might explain what it is you are actually trying to achieve. Then you might get an answer to your problem you like. 1. Backing up an MSF file is a waste of time. 2. If you have an MSF file larger than a few megabytes it is probably corrupt. right click the sent folder in Thunderbird, click properties and then repair. 3. If 20mb or so is to large for the external drive, get a larger one.

This is the problem with forums. People make judgements about you. Sorry for wasting your time. As I said I will find my own solution.

I'm sorry as well. No one is making a judgement about you, but your comments do offer much insight about your knowledge. You do not appear to understand what you are attempting to do and other than copying a file that is of no use in copying, you have not explained the reasoning for doing it nor what you want to achieve. Currently, it sounds like you want to pursue a futile activity , so offering information would help others to understand the real problem.

Index files are of no use to you. If you need to back up emails then you need to backup the mbox files. Mbox files are in the same location as the index .msf files. Mbox files contain emails and they do not have any extension.

If index file seems large then see if repairing the index helps. You can do this by the method mentioned by Matt or access the profile and delete the index .msf file whilst thunderbird is not running. When you start Thunderbird again a brand new index file is created.

If your problem lies in file size: I'm not sure how frequently you compact your folders, but it would be a good idea to do it now as it will fully remove all hidden marked as deleted emails. Compacting folders such as Inbox, Junk, Drafts should be done on a regular basis. It will reduce file size. Right click on folder in Folder Pane and select 'Compact'

I don't believe I have insulted anyone in the forum but it seems you have a need to continue insulting me. Truly, it is not necessary. I no longer need your help. I have my mbox files. I have already compacted folders. And I have my index file where I need it. If you want specific information from users, then perhaps you should have a form where the user can select options more in line with your requirements so that you have all the information you need before you make a response. Just a thought for an improvement.

You have made it clear that you have no intention of providing any additional information to understand your issue.

No one has insulted you, but you have been offered useful information including how to backup various aspects of files within Thunderbird both manually and via using an addon. Backing up the entire profile would be beneficial as it also makes copies of any .msf file. This should suffice in you wanting to backup the .msf index file.

If you have any query in the future, you need to be prepared to offer information to understand your precise issue in order to receive useful and helpful guidance.