Recently I’ve been having all kinds of issues with my PC. Its incredibly unstable. So I started making plans earlier this year to transfer everything to a new computer. The part that was really keeping me from going ahead with it was that I’m dependent on my old emails. If you are like me you have thousands of emails that you use as references for projects and clients. Its your backup to the paper files and doc files. I’ve had clients come to me saying their computer crashed and they lost all their emails, panic sets in.

I realize I need to learn to backup my email files and learn to transfer them to another computer if necessary. I found many tutorials but they were kind of confusing. If you’ve followed my previous advice, you’re using Thunderbird email and Firefox browser. If you’re not, go get them now! They are free and easy to use, much better than Outlook and Internet Explorer.

I found this tutorial and used it to start the process, I’ll translate it to easy to understand directions. While I was at it I figure I may as well backup my Firefox as well so I didn’t have to re-bookmark everything.

Step one: Clean out your emails! Trust me, you’ll be kicking yourself later if you skip this step and are waiting on the large file download. Empty your trash and remove any emails you don’t need. For me this was something like 4,000 emails!

Step two: Locate your Applications Data folder. It is a hidden folder so the easiest way to do this is to got to Start>run> and type %APPDATA% (Click ok)

Step three: Locate the “Mozilla” (FireFox) and “Thunderbird” folders depending on which one you want to backup. Copy these folders in their entirety and paste to a portable device you want to backup on. This could be a CD, USB drive or an External Drive.

Thats it, you have a backup of your emails and browser links! To install these if you loose your information just find the Applications Data folder again and use your backup to overwrite the files. (Copy and Paste and click “yes to all” when prompted) You can use this as a backup on your current computer or a new computer, as in my case. Either way, its a good idea to make backups every once in awhile to ensure you don’t lose your important information!

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