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Thunderbird backup fails due to locked files

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Sorry to re-ask what has probably been asked before but I can't seem to search this forum and get the results in date order.

Anyway, I use TIH2015 to do daily backups of my data including backing-up my Thunderbird profiles. If Thunderbird is open (which it usually is), the scheduled backup fails because the data file is locked.

I am pretty sure that other backup programs I have used in the past get around this by taking a snapshot of the locked data file.

The fact that TIH fails on this point makes scheduled backups useless for me. My Thunderbird data is one of the most important things I need to backup.

Any help much appreciated.

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You could consider doing a disk and partition backup. That would include all your files including system files.
You could also consider terminating the application before the backup starts (using a command batch file and the taskkill command, or pskill) and relaunching it after the backup. (ATI allows you to run pre- and post-backup command files).

File-based backup can indeed use shadow copies of files, and this type of shadowing can be provided by the OS itself or by the backup software vendor proprietary technology.

Are you doing a cloud backup? It doesn't use shadow copies of files.

I think/hope that local backups do use shadow copies. I've never had this problem when backing up to a USB disk.

Just backing up local data to a NAS drive. If any file is in use, the backup halts and, unless there's user interaction (closing the open file), the backup terminates with an error.

I don't think it used to do that.

I find this rather disturbing. If I lost my Thunderbird data and address book I'd be in real trouble. I never realised Acronis might not be backing it up.

Please explain exactly how I should back up using Acronis 2013 so that Thunderbird data is always backed up.

Thanks