MozBackup & FEBE....

[Meractik]

I want some user reviews on FEBE, does it literally backup EVERYTHING???

I was using MozBackup for a while (I am talking strictly to backup Thunderbird) - I don't care about my FF stuff.

I have my Thunderbird built to have 1 mail inbox and tons of forwarding to sub-folders based off FROM: addresses so its important that I keep my folder structure intact as-well-as my custom filter's need to remain in-tact, would be nice to keep my junk mail settings as well.

Goes without saying I also want to keep my contact list intact of addresses I have added &

Also I want to keep all my events/scheduled items and tasks in my Lightening calendar...

I constantly utilize Thunderbird and basically I want an entire snapshot so that If I do a backup right now and restore it, I won't be able to tell the difference.

This was not the case with MozBackup it only backed up my default e-mail profile which was a really old address that was deleted from my thunderbird client and I then had to re-setup EVERYTHING. I want to avoid this in the future, afterall I was performing the monthly MozBackup in order to prevent myself from having to set everything up manually again.

 

[lxskllr]

Dunno, but an easy way is to backup your Tbird profile folder. You could even script it. Copy the folder, compress it, then move it to a network location if desired.

 

[Meractik]

Dunno, but an easy way is to backup your Tbird profile folder. You could even script it. Copy the folder, compress it, then move it to a network location if desired.

Does simply moving the profile folder take care of everything? I really want to ensure I would be keeping my calendar settings and the folder structure under inbox etc.... I guess I could test it out on a virtual install first to ensure after I build it all back up perfect that it really works... perhaps Ill do that.

 

[lxskllr]

TBH, I'm not 100% sure, but looking at it previously, it should cover everything. I'm not in front of my computer to check now. The vm is a good idea. You could install Tbird to a GNU/Linux live session, then copy the profile over to check it.

 

[bruceb]

It does not back up the Default Firefox Theme and I think something about the .net framework assistant does not get backed up. But everything else does, including your Bookmarks and any added Themes

 

[ringtail]

If your Thunderbird profile is installed in the default location (Win7 it's in "C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles")

them yes, MozBackup backs up EVERYTHING, including all your folders, individual emails, add-ons like Lightning with all its tasks and calendar entries, AdBlock Plus, Compact Header, etc. Or you can un-check the MozBackup menu boxes to only select certain things for backup and omit others.

However, IF when installing Thunderbird you have it put your profile in a non-default location, them maybe MozBackup does not catch everything.
Experience: I was getting warning messages that the default location couldn't hold all my saved email. This was couple years ago, I don't remember the exact message.

Anyway, I installed Thunderbird normally except had it put my profile in My Documents. Result: the user profile folder, and the email contents folders and the task & calendar data each fragmented apart into separate elements which were not all inside the user profile folder. In that case I don't know if MozBackup catches the contents that are outside the actual user profile folder.

 

[ringtail]

Does simply moving the profile folder take care of everything? I really want to ensure I would be keeping my calendar settings and the folder structure under inbox etc.... I guess I could test it out on a virtual install first to ensure after I build it all back up perfect that it really works... perhaps Ill do that.

Yes. Everything.

But don't "move" the profile folder like you said. Leave it alone and only COPY it to a backup location. You can do that manually or you can run Mozbackup to do same thing more easily.

 

[Meractik]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I tested a few things in a VM environment. Copying the profile folder itself onto a PC with a fresh install of T-bird and just pasting the profile folder into the "Profiles" folder on that new installation failed.... The new installation of thunderbird still wanted to make its own fresh profile folder upon boot instead of use the one I supplied.

MozBackup failed miserably, I kept running the backup feature to back EVERYTHING up in my default profile - and upon my attempt at restoring all my crap was missing, the folder structures, the aliases, all filters, etc....

I just found a new product and tested it in a VM environment, the KLS Mail backup program which worked marvelously! Just figured I'd update the thread, where everything else failed, KLS Mail backup/restore pulled through... Even brought over my calendar items and reminders, aliases, outgoing mail server(s) and signature(s)

 

[WT]

Did you have the MozBackup restore file located locally on the PC ?? I ran into trouble when I saved the file to my home server and it failed to import it to the new PC. Copying it locally and running Mozbackup resolved the issue.

 

[Meractik]

WT - I copied the file itself to my desktop then restored from there on a fresh Thunderbird install and when I launched the install was when I realized it didn't save everything.

KLS Mail backup is what I will use from now on, it even gives me a hierarchy tree structure of items to backup individually within my profile if I didn't want to backup the whole thing, which is great...