MozBackup

(Article originally written for Thunderbird only.)

Important: MozBackup development has been discontued, and it may not work with the latest versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, or the Mozilla Suite. Use it at your own risk. See Profile backup for simple instructions on making backups manually.

MozBackup is a standalone utility (for Windows only) rather than a Thunderbird extension. It works by backing up a Thunderbird profile into a single file (named *.pcv), which can then be restored on the same Windows computer or a different one. (MozBackup can also be used to back up and restore Firefox, Mozilla Suite, and Netscape 7 profiles.) It can be downloaded at the MozBackup homepage.

Note: If you are planning to use MozBackup for making regular backups, it is recommended that you first test it to verify that it will properly restore your Thunderbird profile. It seems not to work well in certain situations, such as with profiles that have been deliberately created in non-default locations.

Backing up

1. If Thunderbird is running, exit the application.
2. After downloading and installing MozBackup, launch the utility, choose the "Backup" option, and follow the instructions.
3. At the bottom of the next screen, you can specify the location of the backup file (*.pcv) that will be created. Take note of where the file will be saved.
4. Click on through the remaining screens until the .pcv file has been created. Then burn this file onto a CD or store it elsewhere for safekeeping.

Restoring/migrating

1. Make sure Thunderbird has been installed on the computer. If it has not been launched yet, it is probably best to launch it once to make sure the registry.dat file has been created. Exit Thunderbird before proceeding.
2. Launch MozBackup, choose the "Restore" option, and follow the instructions.
3. The next screen will prompt you, "Select the profile you want to restore." Important: the profile you select will be overwritten by the contents of the profile that is backed up in the .pcv file. If you do not want to overwrite any of the profiles listed in the MozBackup screen, you should create a new profile by clicking on the "New Profile" button (you may need to click on the "Refresh" button afterwards), or if this doesn't work you can exit MozBackup, create a new profile with the Thunderbird Profile Manager, and launch MozBackup to begin the restore process again.
4. Select the .pcv file that contains your backed-up profile. If you are restoring to a different computer, you will need to transfer the .pcv file to that computer first.
5. Click on through the remaining screens until the profile has been restored, and exit MozBackup.
6. Launch Thunderbird. The restored profile should now be available for use.

Problems restoring with MozBackup?

If you are having problems restoring a .pcv backup file that you created with the MozBackup utility and nothing you have tried seems to work, keep in mind that the .pcv file is actually a normal .zip file. Here's what you can try to recover your profile:

1. Rename the backup file from *.pcv to *.zip.
2. Extract (unzip) the *.zip file into a convenient location. If you now look inside the unzipped folder, you will see your mail folders, address books, and various other files that make up your profile folder.
3. Manually restore/migrate this unzipped profile folder as decribed here.