MailBrowserBackup Restores Lost Chrome or Firefox Settings

Back up profiles of browsers, some e-mail software, and several Internet utilities.

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Preston Gralla

PC World
Tuesday, June 16, 2009; 12:19 AM

Here's one of the more annoying things that can happen at the keyboard: After you've set up your browser or e-mail software to work exactly how you want, and customized it to your every need, it suddenly reverts to the default, for no reason. And here's a quick way to solve the problem: Use free MailBrowserBackup.

This simple Open Source program saves browser profiles--and profiles of some mail programs and other Internet utilities--then lets you restore those profiles if things go wrong with your setup. It literally takes two clicks.

To save a profile, launch MailBrowserBackup, tell it which programs' profiles you want to save, and choose a location for the profiles. Then when you want to restore those profiles, launch the program again, click Restore, and tell it where you saved the profiles. Keep in mind, though, that you'll have to remember to run the program regularly to save the latest version of your profiles.

There's only one problem with this software: As of this review, it only works with Firefox and Google Chrome. Support will be coming for Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer, and a browser called SRWare Iron. Support is also coming for the e-mail clients Thunderbird, Windows Mail, and IncrediMail, although not Outlook. The developer also promises that support is on the way for the FileZilla and eMule Internet utilities within the next few months.