How to Download All Attachments from Thunderbird? Quick Solutions

Admin ~ February 11, 2025 ~ 5 Minutes Reading

Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source desktop email client and it offers inbuilt features for managing email attachments. Users can manually save attachments from individual emails, extract them to reduce mailbox size by manually and using Thunderbird Converter for bulk extraction. While Thunderbird doesn’t offer a direct option to download, all attachments feature various methods that allow users to efficiently manage and retrieve attachments. Understanding these options helps in optimizing storage, improving email performance and ensuring important files are easily accessible.

Advantages of Downloading Attachments from Thunderbird

  • To detach attachments from Thunderbird reduce the size of the mailbox and it also prevents performance issues.
  • It helps you for better email management and easier to locate and find specific emails.
  • Large attachments can slow down Thunderbird, causing lag and synchronization issues. Extracting them helps you to optimize speed and responsiveness.
  • It can be stored in external hard drives or cloud storage to ensure data is safe  and prevent accidental deletion.
  • It enables easy sharing without forwarding emails with colleagues or team members.

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:

  1. Launch “Mozilla Thunderbird” on your computer.
  2. Select the email as containing the “Attachments”.
  3. Scroll down to the Attachment section and click on “Download”.
  4. Choose the destination folder and press Save to “download attachment from Thunderbird”.

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 Attachment Extractor 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.