Thunderbird users might want to back up their account once in a while. The way to do that in Thunderbird is to export the account; including profile information, emails, contacts and calendars.

To export your Thunderbird account and data, follow this procedure:

• Press the Menu symbol in the upper right corner of the Thunderbird application window (three parallel, horizontal stripes)
• Select ‘Tools -> Export, and see the export tool opening
• Press the ‘Export’ button and browse and select where to save the compressed data
•  Watch the progress until the export has finished. Then press the ‘Finish’ button

Your data has now been exported. Save the compressed file (your backup) in a safe place.

Note that Thunderbird at this time only supports profiles up to the size of 2 GB. If the profile is larger than that, use the file manager and create a backup copy of the profile folder in a more ‘manual’ fashion.

• To find your profile folder, use the ‘Open profile folder’ link in the first step of the export process above. The contents of the profile folder in the file manager. The profile folder has a name like something.default-release.
• Select and copy the entire content of the profile folder.
• Create an empty folder at the target of the backup. Choose a helpful folder name like Thunderbird_profile_backup_2026-08-20.
• Paste the contents of the profile folder into the empty target folder.

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