How to Recover Email Passwords in Thunderbird (Step-by-Step Guide)

November 13, 2019

in Password Recovery, Password Secrets

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In this guide, you will learn where Thunderbird stores your saved email passwords, how they are secured using strong encryption, and the easiest way to recover them instantly when needed.

Thunderbird Password Secrets

Thunderbird and all its variant store all your email account credentials in a file named “logins.json”, located at:

[Thunderbird]
C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random_name]\logins.json

[Thunderbird Beta]
C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random_name-beta]\logins.json

[Thunderbird Daily]
C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random_name-nightly]\logins.json

[Thunderbird ESR]
C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random_name]\logins.json

This “logins.json” file is stored in JSON format and contains a separate entry for each saved account credential.

Below are the key fields included for every credential entry,

{
"id":1,
"hostname":"imap://mail.example.com",
"encryptedUsername":"MDIEEPgBBBBABBBEwFAYIbaZIhvcNAwcEaAFsqdqBAiJyHK56O9cid==",
"encryptedPassword":"MDoEEPgBCCCCAAAAAAEwFCDIKoZIBAtABCG4rNAexni08zRm4Sraz/",
},

To safeguard the secrets, Thunderbird uses the key that is derived from the Master Password. This key is then used to encrypt the username/password using SHA-1 and Triple DES encryption.

Thunderbird Master Password

Thunderbird allows you to set a Master Password to protect all your stored email passwords. Once enabled, the stored passwords cannot be decrypted without providing this Master Password.

The Master Password itself is secured using a one-way hashing algorithm, meaning it cannot be directly decrypted. The only possible recovery method is through a brute-force attack, which can take a very long time depending on the password’s length and complexity.

Thunderbird stores Master Password–related data in the files key4.db and cert9.db, located in the same profile folder. Older versions used key3.db and cert8.db.

Important Tip: Since Thunderbird does not use user-specific or machine-bound encryption, its passwords from other user account or external drive can be recovered using the software mentioned below.

How to Recover Thunderbird Email Passwords Automatically

Recovering Thunderbird passwords manually can be complex and time-consuming due to multiple layers of encryption.

With XenArmor Email Password Recovery Pro, you can instantly recover all Thunderbird email passwords from every profile across all user accounts.

And if a “Master Password” is set, you can simply provide it in the Settings to automatically recover all saved passwords.

Follow these simple steps,