3 Tips to Convert Thunderbird Emails to HTML

Best 3 Ways Convert Thunderbird Emails to HTML Easily

 A User’s Query
“I came in the need of converting Thunderbird mail to HTML while forwarding some mail message, which was designed very poorly. It was basically an email-newsletter, and I had to tweak some things before I could forward it. Is there any method to Migrate emails from Thunderbird to HTML”

Some Ways to Export Thunderbird Emails to HTML

Method One

• If user is in the mail-composition mode, leave the “view-source” option, HTML is needed instead and not the raw mail message having MIME formatting
• While composing any message, first Edit
• Then Select All
• And then, click Insert
• Then HTML menu’s option on the message-window
• A window opens
• It is possible to drag this window to a bigger size
• HTML message would be there (without headers & body tags)
• This happens to be a better and much more beneficial in copying messages as HTML

Method two

• Message can be created in HTML editor
• Insert that using the same feature
• The menu command being

1. Insert
2. Then HTML

• This would allow editing the required message as HTML
• This can be done as long as the text is selected before invoking Insert->HTML
• For Thunderbird 31.5.0 , it’s somewhat relevant
• The solution to Convert Thunderbird Emails to HTML would be

1. Go to “File”
2. Then Save As
3. Then File
4. Picking up “HTML” file type

• This would help as expected
• Some other application has to be used like say either Firefox or Notepad etc (view source) for accessing this HTML-source
• Using it in built-in Firefox text-editor is a tricky way

Converting Thunderbird Emails to HTML Using a 3-Step Procedure

Step 1 – Prepare Thunderbird

• First and foremost, the ImportExportTools 2.8.0.4 add-on has to be downloaded to transfer emails from Thunderbird to HTML
• Right-click on some relevant link from where it can be downloaded from
• For Firefox & Chrome, “Save Link As” has to be chosen
• But for Internet Explorer, it is “Save target as”
• This file needs to be saved on Desktop
• Now, open Thunderbird
• Then, click Tools
• Go to Add-ons
• After that, click Extensions
• And then, click little gear icon
• Now, choose “Install-Add-on-From-File”
• Try navigating to that importexporttools-2.8.0.4-tb.xpi file which was downloaded
  File must be highlighted
• Click Open
• If a warning appears that says “Install-add-ons-only-from-authors-whom-you-trust”, then simply click the button for Install-Now
• And then, restart Thunderbird to prepare Thunderbird before you Export Thunderbird Emails to HTML
• Do this clicking the link, “Restart now”
• Lastly, close that Add-ons Manager-tab

Step 2 – Synchronizing the Mail to Folders

• First, open Mozilla Thunderbird
• Then, go to File
• Then, Offline
• Then, Work Offline
• Now, click Download-Now
• All folders get updated to that latest email

Step 3 – Exporting Email

• To Move Thunderbird Emails to HTML Firstly, try creating a folder on Desktop for storing the email (say for example “Saved-UCSB-email”)
• Then, right-Click on Thunderbird’s folder which is needed to be saved from (say for example your Inbox)
• Then ImportExportTools
• Then Export-all-messages-in-the-folder
• After that, click required format like say EML-format
  OR one can even select (or say highlight) more than folder together all at once

1. This can be done if you press Ctrl button & simultaneously click each & every folder desired to be saved
2. Then releasing of Ctrl button
3. Right-click on any of those selected folders
4. Then Export-all-messages-in-the-folder
5. After that, click required format say EML-format

• If there is a WARNING that suggests the subfolders won’t get saved till they are highlighted or clicked, and highlighting parent folder won’t save subfolders
• It is also important to note that all of the subfolders would get pulled from their own structure & then saved sidelined by other folders in that destination-folder
• Now, navigate to the folder “Saved-UCSB-email”
• Then, click the button, Select-Folder
• Messages export now to move emails from Thunderbird to HTML
• Progress can be watched at Thunderbird’s bottom-left-corner
  On completion, double-check by opening your “Saved UCSB email” folder
• Each and every folder that was saved from Mozilla Thunderbird would be having index file where it is easy to access the messages

Better Alternative –

Manual ways are obviously tiresome and not fullproof of data loss while you are trying to Migrate Thunderbird Emails to HTML. So what’s better always is a minor investment which would anyway prove to be good value for money is to invest in a good commercial solution like MBOX to Outlook Converter that provides option HTML View within interface that allows to preview emails in different Views.

Ending Notes

The article touched the various ways by which users can convert Thunderbird Emails to HTML. After talking about some manual techniques, a better alternative in the form of third-party tool is suggested to help users a great deal to Transfer emails from Thunderbird to HTML.