How to Back up Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird
Firefox and Thunderbird Firefox users need to back up regularly to guard against the possibility that their profile gets corrupted or wiped after installing a new extension or a new version of Firefox. If you use Thunderbird then it's even more important that you back up to ensure you don't accidentally lose your email correspondence and account settings.
There are two ways to back up: use a backup utility or do it yourself manually.
Backup Utilities
MozBackup is a free utility written by Pavel Cvrcek that will automatically back up Firefox and Thunderbird as well as Netscape and the full Mozilla suite. In fact, the most recent versions will also back up Mozilla Sunbird, Flock and Spicebird.
It works like a charm - the whole process is driven by a Wizard so easy to use that even raw beginners will be able to set up automatic backups. It also offers encryption of the backup files and a complete push-button restore option.
MozBackup only backs up the essential information rather than all the information in your Mozilla profile, but that's fine for most users. You can get MozBackup here: http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/
If you only need to back up Firefox, an excellent, perhaps superior, alternative is the free FEBE Firefox extension. Initially designed for backing up extensions, it now offers the options of backing up various sections of your profile such as bookmarks, cookies, auto-complete, etc. Most importantly, it allows you to back up your entire profile just by checking a single box. Full or selective restore is available. Thanks to site visitor Anupam Shriwatri for the suggestion. FEBE is available from here: http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/febe/febe.html
There are also a couple of commercial utilities that will back up Firefox and Thunderbird. I've not used them but you can find details at http://www.rinjanisoft.com/
Manual Backup
Backing up Firefox and Thunderbird manually is as simple as copying their respective profile folders to another location. If you do that, you’ll have a full backup with all your setting and personal data saved.
An advantage of manual backup is that you don't need to have Firefox or Thunderbird functioning in order to restore your backup; it's just a case of copying the backup profiles. That's a good thing because the most common reason you want to restore is that your Firefox or Thunderbird installation is not working!
The hardest part is finding the profile folders. First up, they are not located where you would expect to find them. Secondly, they are located in different places for different versions of Windows. Thirdly, they may be assigned random file names that make them difficult to recognize.
On Windows 2000/XP machines the locations for your Firefox and Thunderbird profiles are respectively:
- C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\
- C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\
- C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\
- C:\Windows\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\
If you can't locate your profiles then check out this document for more information: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#What_is_in_my_profile?
On my XP laptop the profiles are:
- C:\Documents and Settings\Ian\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.ebq
-
C:\Documents and Settings\Ian\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\25ve0lz5.default
To back these up I copy the profiles to an external USB drive. It's as simple as that. I do it manually but you could also use Windows Scheduler or a backup manager to do the job automatically. Make sure, though, that Firefox and Thunderbird are not running before you back up.
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You can force Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird to use a more 'reasonable' storage directory than "C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\"
First, back up your profile manually as suggested in the article.
Start Thunderbird with -profilemanager to bring up a dialog that allows you to manage your Tbird profiles. Create a new profile in a more reasonable place, say, d:\PersonalData\Tbird\.
Thunderbird creates the directory and populates it with some default stuff. On startup, it asks you for some information to get going. Cancel out of this, and close Thunderbird.
Delete the new, default data that Thunderbird just created in your new, reasonably-named folder. Replace it with your backed up data.
Again, run Thunderbird with -profilemanager, and ensure that it starts up with your new profile.
Thunderbird will work with the backed up directory structure. You've successfully moved your Tbird profile! Run Thunderbird with -profilemanager one last time, and remove your old profile. Never again dig through "c:\Users and Settings" or whatever to do a simple backup.
Be careful! Nobody's responsible if you bork up your email stash!
Hello Gizmo,
I keep my Thunderbird profile folder in a different place; in my documents folder on my data drive (D: drive). Thunderbird allows me to select a different profile location in the "Account Settings > Server Settings" window.
So, I tried an experiment with Mozbackup to see how it would work with the different location. I made a copy of my Thunderbird profile folder (with copy/paste), then I used MozBackup to backup Thunderbird. Then I deleted my Thunderbird profile folder, and tried restoring from Mozbackup.
Mozbackup did not fare very well. Each time I would try the restore it would reset Thunderbird's profile location setting from my D: drive to the default location on the C: drive, and it would restore the profile data to the C: drive as well. If that weren't enough, I found the restored profile data (that was restored to the incorrect location on the C: drive) was missing the actual emails.
So, I think MozBackup may have a few problems when a non-standard profile location is used, although it's very possible I am doing something wrong.
Thanks, Gizmo. I love the great information you provide to us.
Randy
Hi
What I want to do is move thunderbird profile to a new partition on my hard drive so how do I do that ? I have tried one method but TB just keeps making a new folder as tho it was a fresh download . So any help is appreciated
thanks
I tried to restore a profile, but using the technique described above for manual backup and restore, it seems to have lost all my saved passwords. Are they not saved in the Profile?
They should be in the profile unless you are using a third party app like Roboform
One thing that Gizmo doesn't mention is that FEBE has a great counterpart called CLEO that takes the FEBE backups and combines them into one XPI file for you to do a single install and voila you have all of your extensions installed..
http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/cleo/cleo.html
HTH,
Kent
Good stuff. Now, all I need to do is hunt down (putting on pith helmet and taking up .50 caliber air rifle *heh*) the right folder in Ubuntu...
;-)
Can I back up firefox 3, the restore my profile to firefox 2?
Ken D.- California
Another program I have found very useful on a couple of occasions for backing up both Firefox and Thunderbird is BackUpFox. I use both MozBackup and BackupFox to back up my profiles in Firefox and Thunderbird and both have saved my bacon a couple of times. The most recent when I bought a new computer. What I like about both is that not only can you backup but also restore very easily. BackupFox backs up the whole profile. Can be downloaded from http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t291258.html
or
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Browser-Tweak/BackupFox.shtml
among others. Just type BackupFox into Google or other Search engine
Alan Noble
Sydney Australia
Once again - thank you. This is my #1 go-to site.
I backed up Thunderbird from my desktop system (Win XP Pro) and then restored it on my laptop (Win XP Home) prior to traveling. The restore appeared to work BUT on the main panel, the subject, sender, recipient, and date are unreadable. Every other entry has been over written on superimposed with another one. If I click on these I can read the email but entries are are screwed up.
Can anyone help?
George
What about Mac? Where are the profile folders which contain the user data for Firefox? Thanks in advance.
You can find the locations in Windows Vista at
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Mozilla
Just fyi. :)
I don't think that's correct.
The profiles in Vista are at C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla for Firefox and C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird for, well, Thunderbird. At least that's were they are on my machine, which is running Vista Home Premium.
I confirm the locations for my Vista Home Premium. Also, I found Sunbird data files at the C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla location.
thanks for the help
Is it possible to backup a Firefox profile created using Win2000 and move the profile to an new system running XP?
It should work. Let me know if it doesn't
Theres also an extension available for taking backup of firefox. Its FEBE. It can peform selective backup .. or a whole profile backup and is quite useful.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
Good suggestion. I've incorporated this into my recommendations.
I used the mozBackup for my thunderbird, but it only restored one of my email account's mail. Any idea where the other accounts mail have gone?
There is a shortcut to the profile folder in Win2000/XP In "run" just type %APPDATA%
Thanks Gizmo, your site is excellent
Very nicely done Gizmo, I was always confused about this, and you helped me with this "How to" guide!
Thanks,
Edward A. Weissbard-El Paso, TX
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