🗂️ Backing Up Email Data

In this article, we’ll explain how to safely back up your email data with Mailbird. While Mailbird handles your data reliably, creating a backup can be a wise precaution in certain cases, such as:

• If you’re using a POP3 email account.

  • (To check whether you use POP3, please refer to this guide)

• If you’re moving Mailbird to a new device.

• If you simply want to back up your data as a safety measure.

Unlike other email platforms, Mailbird offers a simple and effective way to back up important data such as your contacts, your emails, or even your account settings.

💾 How to Back Up Your Mailbird Data

To back up your email data, you’ll need to access the following folder on your computer:

C:\Users\"your user name"\AppData\Local

If you're not familiar with how to reach this location, try following these steps:

• First, make sure to quit Mailbird completely

  • ⚠️ Ensure that it isn't running in the background, or it will compromise the backup.

• Open File Explorer and head to the C:\folder.

• Next, open the folder with your username.

• Double-click the AppData folder to open it.

  • If you don’t see it, enable Hidden Items from the View tab in File Explorer.

• Open the Local folder.

• Locate the Mailbird folder and right-click on it.

• Select Copy.

• Right-click on your desktop (or another safe location) and choose Paste.

  • ⚠️ Do not choose “Paste shortcut” — this won’t copy your actual data.

Congratulations! 🎉You’ve now created a backup of your Mailbird data.

💡 Tip: Windows might hide some folders (such as the AppData folder) on your device by default. We have no control of this unfortunately. However, in the "Folder Options" of Windows Explorer there is a setting to show hidden folders - this needs to be enabled.

For Windows 10 users, click the "View" tab, and enable the "Hidden Items" (see screenshot below).

📥 Additional Info: Restoring Your Backup on a New Device

If you're moving Mailbird to a new computer:

• Navigate to the same location on your new device:
  C:\Users\"your user name"\AppData\Local

• Drag and drop the folder which you copied previously into this location so that it overwrites the existing Mailbird folder.

Once your have overwritten the folder, go ahead and launch Mailbird: your email accounts, settings, and emails will all be fully restored.

💡 Tip: You can copy your files over to a new device either by using a USB stick or via your preferred file-sharing service.

🔄 Need to Move Emails Between Servers?

Unfortunately, Mailbird does not support direct email server-to-server transfers. If you need to move emails from one server to another:

• Check if your email provider offers a backup or migration tool.

• For Gmail, consider using Google Takeout to export your data.

• You can also explore Chrome extensions like Save Emails to PDF to export messages.

🧰 Additional Tools to Consider

If you’re looking for a robust third-party solution for backing up emails, we suggest taking a look at MailStore Home, a free tool that helps archive your emails from various sources. 

📩 Need More Help?

If you have any questions or run into issues during the backup process, feel free to contact our Customer Happiness Team by clicking here. We'll always be happy to help.