Compress

How to Compress Thunderbird Email Files – Know Best Techniques

Written By Rollins Duke

Approved By

Admin

Published On

May 19th, 2023

Reading Time

6 Minutes

Are you struggling to find a solution to free up the storage space on your Thunderbird Mail client? Do you also often receive prompts urging you to compact/ compress Thunderbird email files? If yes, then you are on the right webpage as here, we will be discussing multiple ways to compress Thunderbird emails. But first, let’s understand the concept of compression in Thunderbird or why do we need to compress Thunderbird folders?

Thunderbird is an open email client application that can be freely downloaded and used on almost all major operating systems, Windows, Mac, or Linux. Apart from providing emailing services, Thunderbird can also be used as a Personal Information Manager, RSS, or chat client.

Unlike most email client services, Thunderbird does not completely erase the deleted files. It marks the files as deleted and hides them from users’ view, but such files still remain on the hard disk and occupy space. The act of Compacting or Compressing files/ folders deletes such files permanently; thus, releasing a significant amount of storage space.

This blog will walk you through various methods by which we can compress Thunderbird email files. So, let’s start with manual methods.

First Manual Method to Compress Thunderbird Email Folders

This involves compacting the folder(s) containing Thunderbird emails. Depending on your requirement, you can choose any of the following ways:

Case I: To Compact Single Thunderbird Folder

Open your Thunderbird email application.
Right-click on the folder that you wish to compress.
Select the Compact option from the drop-down list.
The Thunderbird folder compression process is running.
Thunderbird displays the amount of space saved.

Case II: To Compact All Thunderbird Folders

Start the Thunderbird email client on your pc.
Tap the File tab and select Compact Folders.
The compact Thunderbird folders process is running.

Note: If you have not compressed your folders for quite some time, then this operation may take some time to complete.

Second Manual Method to Compress Thunderbird Mailboxes

This involves configuring your Thunderbird application for enabling automated mailbox compression.

Launch your Thunderbird desktop client.
Tap the Tools tab and select Account Settings from the drop-down list.
Select Disk Space on the Account Settings page and configure your settings.
Choose the Delete all but the most recent radio button to make the application automatically delete old messages.
Click the Delete messages more than radio button and set the preferred number of days after which you would like the application to delete your messages.

Limitations of Manual Methods

Though Thunderbird has provided some native solutions for compression, they come with certain limitations and risks because of which users generally prefer to take the help of a professional solution to compress their Thunderbird folders.

There is a high risk of data loss involved in the manual compression of data due to wrong operation. Moreover, it is a slow process, and the application tends to hang in between the process. This may result in partial compression of emails, even manual methods are suitable to recover only a few KB or MB space.

You need to compress Thunderbird folders at regular intervals to prevent your folders from getting large and the data in them from getting corrupted. Due to all such reasons, experts always recommend Thunderbird users to opt for a reliable professional solution.

Automated Solution to Compress Thunderbird Email Files

Mozilla Thunderbird and most email client applications store their data in the MBOX format. So before running the automated solution, you need to export MBOX files from your Thunderbird application. After compressing the Thunderbird MBOX files, you need to again import them back into your Thunderbird. So roughly there are three broad steps to compress Thunderbird email files. Just download and install MBOX Compress Software on your computer and then follow the instructions.

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Export MBOX Files from Thunderbird application.
Compress Thunderbird mailbox files.
Import compressed files back to Thunderbird.

Note: As manual ways to export MBOX files from Thunderbird are very complex and error-prone, here we will be performing the procedure only with an automated solution.

Step1: Export MBOX Files from Thunderbird

Start the Thunderbird email client and click four lines icon to display the Thunderbird menu.
Select the Add-ons and Themes options from the drop-down menu.
In the search bar type and search ImportExportTools add-ons and add it to Thunderbird.
Restart the Thunderbird email client and right-click on a folder that you want to export.
Choose ImportExportTools >> Export Folder option.
Browse a destination path to store the output MBOX file.

Step2: Compress Thunderbird Mailbox Files

Download, install, and run the Thunderbird Compress Software.
Choose Select Files to add multiple single Thunderbird mailbox files and Select Folders to add folders containing multiple files.
Check the necessary files from the software panel and click Next.
Enable the advanced mode and browse the location to save the resultant files.
Click the Next button to start the Thunderbird compression process.
The live Thunderbird mailbox compress process is displayed on the screen.
After the successful completion of the process, a confirmation message box appears. Click the OK.
The selected location automatically opens on the screen with the folders containing the compressed files.

Step3: Import Compressed Files Back to Thunderbird

Now follow these instructions to import the MBOX files back into the Thunderbird email application.

Start the Thunderbird desktop email client on your computer.
Choose Tools >> ImportExportTools >> Import MBOX File option as shown in the figure.
Browse the compressed Thunderbird mailbox file and import it to Thunderbird.

Unique Features of Thunderbird Compress Software

Remove Attachments: It lets you remove all types of attachments from Thunderbird mailbox files, such as images, PDFs, documents, and other files. Removing attachments from Thunderbird files decreases the file size and makes the application faster.
Remove Email Headers: Choosing this option will let you remove Thunderbird Email Headers containing information about the sender, recipient, and other details about the email. This option will only remove any extra email header information but retain useful information.
Detach Attachments: This option detaches all the attachments from Thunderbird mailbox file and saves them in another folder in their original formats.

Conclusion

This blog explains how to compress Thunderbird email files. We have here explained both manual and automated solutions to compress Thunderbird files. Manual methods, though free, come with many limitations and risks of data loss/ corruption. To overcome all these problems, it is suggested that you should go with the automated solution. You can also try the demo version of the software for free, which allows you to test all the functionalities of the software.