UWM pantherLINK email - Thunderbird - Extracting AND Deleting Attachments - Review of "Attachment Extractor"

    While I utilized this tool on my UWM email account, one could likely use it on any Thunderbird email account.  Note that some of the deletion options may or may not work, depending on, for example, how your service provider implements IMAP, etc.  The choice to run the tool -- and possibly lose your email messages and/or file attachments -- is yours.

     I ran the Thunderbird add-on, "Attachment Extractor" (http://www.eviljeff.com/?page=moz-extensions) and (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/attachmentextractor/) against 5,174 messages in my IMAP inbox.

My Goals

• Extract the file attachments from my messages to a local folder.
  

• Utilize the option to keep a text (HTML) copy of the message itself, as a file, in addition to the extracted file attachment.
  

• Delete the file attachments, after downloading them from the email messages, while retaining the email messages themselves.
  

Environment

• Thunderbird 8.0
• Windows 7
• Extraction folder set to a local drive
  

    The entire process took about 20 minutes to extract the files and to create the text file copies of any messages that also had attachments.  Surprisingly, I could continue to use Thunderbird and other applications while the process ran.

    I found the tool to be useful.  I particularly liked the ability to include variable keys to include in the resulting file names.

    The first time I ran the utility I opted to use the 'Save message txt to file' option.  Doing so created a separate HTML file for every message in my inbox.  While an interesting backup, I found no real use for the HTML files, so I aborted the process, disabled that option, and simply downloaded the attachments themselves.

    For my UWM account I chose 'Delete the attachment from the message' and its 'Delete with AE's internal (experimental) routine.  This method allowed me to bypass having to okay the deletion of each message's attachments.  Again, just like using the tool itself, the risk of utilizing that option is your choice.

What Next?

    Once you download your file attachments, make sure to back them up to an external drive, a cloud drive, etc., using the desired encryption technique of your choice.  I suggest TrueCrypt, to encrypt containers, or Crypt4Free to encrypt individual files.  Both are free and easily locatable via your favorite search engine.