One part of backing up that some people may overlook is their program settings. You can easily backup your Firefox and Thunderbird settings by backing up certain files.

It is also very easy to copy Firefox and Thunderbird settings over to a new computer. Read on for the details.

If you don't currently have a backup solution then I would advise you to read this page.

Make sure you can see hidden files, do this by opening a My Computer window and clicking Tools > Folder Options... in the toolbar. Select the View tab and find the "Hidden files and folders" option in Advanced settings. Select the "Show hidden files and folders" bullet and click OK. Now navigate to X:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data, this folder contains a Thunderbird folder and a Mozilla folder. Follow the parts below for Firefox or Thunderbird.

Firefox:

Navigate to Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles then there is a folder called xxxxxxxx.default, this contains all the Firefox settings and extensions. Add this folder to your backup (create a Folder Pair in SyncToy), or if you want to copy the settings to a new computer copy the contents of this folder to the xxxxxxxx.default folder on the new computer.

Thunderbird:

Navigate to Thunderbird\Profiles then there is a folder called xxxxxxxx.default, this contains all the settings, extensions, and mail from your Thunderbird installation. Add this folder to your backup (Folder Pair in SyncToy), or indeed transfer your settings to another computer by copying the contents of the folder to the xxxxxxxx.default folder on the other machine.

Note: x stands for any number 0-9 or letter a-z. The Profile folder will probably have a different name on a different computer.