Attachments

How to Download All Attachments from Thunderbird? Quick Solutions

Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source desktop email client, and it offers a wide range of features to manage email attachments. Users can manually download all attachments from thunderbird individual emails, extract them to reduce mailbox size as well as with a professional solution for bulk extraction. While Thunderbird does not offer a direct option to download all the existing attachments.

In this technical write-up we will understand how smoothly we can download all attachments from Thunderbird with safety and security. Before jumping to the methods let us know some advantages of downloading attachments from Thunderbird email.

Advantages of Downloading Attachments from Thunderbird

  • Once all the attachments are extracted from Thunderbird, it helps to reduce the size of the mailbox as well as prevents performance issues.
  • It helps you to manage email in a better way with ease and relocating any specific attachments becomes very easy.
  • Sometimes, large attachments can slow down the Thunderbird and cause lag and sync issues, extracting helps to optimize speed and responsiveness.
  • The process enables easy sharing without forwarding emails with colleagues and team members with extreme ease.
  • All the extracted attachments can be stored in external hard drives or cloud storage to ensure data safety and prevent accidental deletion.

How to Download Attachments from Thunderbird Manually?

As Thunderbird doesn’t offer natively way to download attachments from multiple emails in Thunderbird. However, you can save attachments individually by following the steps as we have stated below:

Phase 1: Install Thunderbird Attachment ExtractorTo extract attachments in bulk, you need to install the attachment extractor add-on in Mozilla Thunderbird.

  1. First open Thunderbird application.
  2. Now, click on the Tools >> Add-ons & Themes option.
  3. Search Attachment Extractor in the search box.
  4. After that, click on the Add to Thunderbird option.

Once installed, the add-on will be available in your Thunderbird application that allows you to download attachments easily.

Phase 2: Extract All Attachments from Thunderbird

After installing the add-on, you can now extract attachments from Thunderbird emails.

  1. Restart Thunderbird application.
  2. Open the folder from where you want to extract attachments.
  3. Now, right-click on the email that contains attachments.
  4. Choose the option Extract All Attachments (or a similar option provided by the add-on)
  5. Now, browse the destination path and click on Ok to start the process.

Constraints of Manual Techniques

  • It required lots of time as you need to download each email separately.
  • Thunderbird doesn’t offer inbuilt feature to download attachments in bulk.
  • Requires manual effort to find each email that contains attachments and download them separately.
  • Users must have advanced technical expertise to handle this approach without losing any information.
  • Some attachments may be lost or may not find emails containing attachments accurately.

How to Download All Attachments from Thunderbird Using Thunderbird Attachment Extractor?

If you want to download attachments from multiple emails in Thunderbird in a batch or have multiple profiles. So, we suggest you to opt Thunderbird Converter as it allows users to export selective attachments or whole mailbox data attachments without losing any information. This software has been completely tried and tested and also become the first choice of the professional users as it offers fully maintained results without losing any single attributes.

Steps to Download Attachments from Thunderbird

  1. Download and run “Thunderbird Attachment Extractor” on your system.
    Open Thunderbird Attachment Extractor
  2. Click on “Configure Thunderbird profile” and check on multiple users if they want to download attachments from multiple user profilesCheck on configure Thunderbird mailboxes data
  3. Software loaded “Mailbox folder” then choose from where you want to download attachments.
    Select Thunderbird mailbox folder
  4. Choose “TEXT file” in the list of select saving options.(By choosing TXT file it will export emails in TXT file and also extract attachments in a separate folder).Select Text file
  5. Select “File Naming Option” as required to arrange resultant file.
    Choose File Naming option
  6. Browse destination path and select “Advanced filter”.
    Choose destination
  7. Now, click on Next to start “Downloading all attachments from Thunderbird”.
    Start Download all attachments from Thunderbird

Superlative performance Attributes of Thunderbird Attachment Extractor

  • It allows to convert Thunderbird emails to PDF, PST, TXT, HTML and 28+ select saving options.
  • This software specially creates an easy to perform interface to easily perform by any professional or beginner users.
  • You can also use filter options to migrate specific mailbox data as per date range, from, to, subject, exclude folders, root folder, sender blank address, receiver blank address, use selective export setting as per from, to, cc, bcc, body as needed.
  • With this wizard, you can easily auto locate and upload Thunderbird data from the configured profiles.
  • It offers to convert Thunderbird emails including header data to, cc, bcc, subject, etc.
  • This tool can also migrate Thunderbird to Outlook, Maildir, Zimbra, Gmail, Outlook.com and all IMAP Supported email services.

Commonly Asked Questions about Download All Attachments from Thunderbird

How do I Export everything from Thunderbird?

To export everything from Thunderbird you need to install Import/Export NG Tool add-ons in Thunderbird. Install it then go to Tools and click on Import/Export NG Tools > click on export all messages. Choose a format like MBOX or EML. Alternatively, manually copy the profile folder from \%AppData%\Thunderbird on Windows.


How do I force Thunderbird to download all messages?

To force Thunderbird to download all messages, navigate to Account Settings then click on Synchronization and Storage, then check “keep messages for this account on this computer” and set offline Access. You can select folders, right-click and choose Download Now to fetch emails manually.


How do I Copy all Attachments at once?

To copy all attachments at once in Thunderbird, install Attachment Extractor add-ons. Now, select email as you want to extract attachments and right click on it and click on Extract attachments. But it’s also reliable for bulk extraction. So, you can opt Thunderbird Attachment Extractor as it offers fully maintained results without losing any information.

Wrap Up

In this blog post, we have shared the best available solutions to Download All Attachments from Thunderbird manually and using Thunderbird Attachment Extractor. You need to download each attachment separately in a manual approach, while Thunderbird Attachment Extractor specially works for bulk extraction, and it’s completely free to download and also allows you to convert the first 25 items from each folder to test its functionality and its performance as required.