Urgent: Email Backup for Expiring Inbox
Hi,
We would like to inquire about the cost and process for backing up emails from an old inbox that is scheduled to expire on the 19th. This is an urgent matter, as it’s critical that all messages—including both inbox and sent items—are fully backed up before the expiration date.
We would appreciate your guidance as soon as possible so we can proceed without delay.
Thank you in advance.
All Replies (2)
Hi Desiree,
Do you mean that an account will expire and so you will lose access to folders on the server?
Because Thunderbird (Mozilla) does not host your e-mail, no one can quote you a price for backing up messages from the server. Is that what you were asking about? And almost everyone here is a user, not in a position to sell services.
But your messages are in Thunderbird, right?
Is your account an IMAP account or a POP account? If you do not know, go to account settings > click on "server settings" and note the server type at top right. I will assume that it is an IMAP account.
There are several ways to make a back-up copy of your messages in Thunderbird. The best way for you probably depends on how many folders you have, how many messages there are in your folders, and what you want to do with the messages. In your situation, most people want their messages to remain available in Thunderbird. If you do not have many thousands of messages, you could copy the messages to local folders. If you have many thousands of messages, that copy process may be less reliable, so another approach might be better.
In your place, I would get the excellent add-on ImportExportToolsNG and use it to export my account onto an external drive. That would be a good back-up copy. Then, if I wanted access to those exported messages, I would import them into local folders in Thunderbird.
People here can guide you through that process.
Before doing making that back-up copy, do two things:
- To ensure that all your messages are in Thunderbird, set properties of each folder to "When getting new messages for this account, always check this folder" and "select this folder for offline use".
- Make a back-up copy of your whole profile. If your profile is less than two GB in size, use Tools - Export (to an external drive). If it is larger than two GB in size, copy in the file system instead of exporting from Thunderbird. Again, people here can guide you.
By the way, I'm not certain that you have to do anything before the account expires other than ensure that all your messages are downloaded into Thunderbird. You would continue to have access to all your messages in Thunderbird. But you may have some minor issues replying to messages if they are still attached to an expired account. I don't know. I would make a good back-up copy before the account expires.
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