How To Bulk Export Thunderbird Email & Attachments

Thunderbird doesn’t provide an in-built way to export and save emails & attachments in bulk. Unfortunately the forwarding emails as attachment functionality is broken on the receiving end (Thunderbird email client). So if you need to forward emails with attachment in bulk from Thunderbird to another user or simply save them to files read on for details. There is a simple solution to this complex problem

1. First you need to update to Thunderbird 2.

2. Now download the Attachment Extractor extension to your hard disk.

3. In Thunderbird go to Tools->Add-ons and click on Install. Select the xpi file downloaded and follow the simple instructions to install it.

4. Restart Thunderbird.

5. Go to Tools->Add-ons and click on Preferences for Attachment Extractor extension. Make at least the following changes:
5.1 Select - “Make a new name for the attachment, so we can keep both.
5.2 In external actions select “Save message text to file…”
5.3 Optional: You may also want to choose a default download folder.

6. Now select the messages you want to export, right click and choose Extract selected attachments to -> Browse and choose a folder where you want to save the attachments as well as the messages.

7. Relax and enjoy!

The extension is incredibly efficient and easily handles thousands of file. Attachment Extractor is a must-have Thunderbird extension.