How to back up your emails

It’s always a good idea to back up your email in case of sudden data loss. If you are not sure how to do it, you have come to the right place. In this article, we’ll show you how to back up email messages using three popular desktop email clients, , Mac Mail, and .

Locating email server details

In order to receive email from a web server, a client needs to use a set of protocols. For sending messages, there is (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), while for incoming mail protocols, there is IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol). The main difference between these two is that IMAP allows email synchronization across multiple devices, while POP3 does not. Here is one on this topic.

You can configure any inbox to work with an email client, as long as you have the necessary configuration details for these protocols.

If you are using to receive your , here’s how to collect your data:

1. Access your hPanel. Search E-mail accounts in the search field.
2. Write this information somewhere or keep this tab open. You will need it later.

Alternatively, if you are using Gmail or Yahoo Mail, you must first enable access to these protocols from your account.

Manage POP access in Gmail

Setting up POP access in Gmail allows you to store a copy of your messages locally through any email client. By default, this protocol automatically removes the original from the webmail inbox after downloading it. However, Gmail gives you an option to determine if you want to delete them, archive them, keep them, or mark them as read.

To enable POP access in Gmail, do the following:

1. Sign in to your Gmail account, choose the Google account by clicking on your profile icon.
2. Then go to Security and scroll down to Access to less secure applications. click on Allow less secure apps to activate the option. This must be done so that Gmail does not reject a server connection established from the remote client.
3. Configure the POP settings by going to the page Setting.
4. Go to the tab POP/IMAP mail and forwarding. In the section pop mail downloadchange to Enable POP for all mail. Also, the second option determines what type of action should be performed on the original messages once a copy is saved. In this example, we keep them.
5. For Gmail server settings, click setup instructions below option Set up your email client. Scroll down to find the information.

Set up IMAP access for Yahoo Mail

IMAP, as we explained earlier, synchronizes the messages with the server so that they can be accessed from any device. To set up IMAP access for Yahoo Mail, you just need to adjust your security settings.

Sign in to your Yahoo Mail account, click on your icon to find account information.
Go to Account Security and turn on the Allow apps that use less secure login option.
Allow access to less secure apps in Yahoo Mail
You’ll find IMAP server settings in the Yahoo Help Center.
IMAP server settings for Yahoo Mail

How to back up your email using Email clients

Once you have your email server details, you need to set up your account with the email client to back up your messages. Below you can find the steps to do it using three different email applications.

Email backup in Outlook

Start by adding your email account to Outlook, if you don’t know how to do it you can follow this . In the steps below, we will learn how to back up your email in Outlook 2019 version.

1. click on File, Archivechoose Open and Export and click the button Import Export.
2. In a new window, choose the option Export to a file and press the button Following.
3. Then choose the Outlook Data File (.pst) as export format. click on Following again.
4. Now select your email account from the list and again, click on the button Following.
5. Finally, choose the destination folder and press the button To finalize. Outlook will ask you to create an additional password for the backup, but you can bypass it by clicking Cancel If you prefer.

As you can see, using Outlook to back up your emails only takes a few clicks.

Email Backup in Thunderbird

Start Thunderbird and set up your email by checking this. Once you’ve finished setting up your account, check your inbox for a new message. If there isn’t, you can sync it manually by clicking the button Get messages.

Now, backing up with Thunderbird can be tricky as this email client does not have a built-in email export feature. However, there is a solution:

1. Create a new folder on your computer (you can name it whatever you want).
2. Navigate to the email folder you want to back up in Thunderbird.
3. Uses CTRL + A (CMD + A for macOS) and select all the messages inside the folder.
4. Right click on the emails and choose the option Save as. Locate the folder you created earlier as the save destination.

That is all! Thunderbird will export all selected email messages in the format .eml.

Backup emails in Mac Mail

macOS users can back up their email using the Apple Mail client. Skip to step four if you already have your account set up:

1. go to Mail -> Add account.
2. Choose the option Another email account. click on Continue.
3. Enter your email server details and press Log in.
4. Right click on the email folder you want to backup and choose export mailbox.
5. Select your destination folder and press the button To choose. Email will export your emails as a .mbox.

That’s it, you have successfully backed up your email using Apple Mail. Since the format .mbox is widely compatible with all major email clients, you should have no problem migrating to a different one.

conclusion

You’ve learned how to back up emails with Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail.

We hope this guide has made backing up emails less daunting for you.

Deyi is a digital marketing enthusiast, with a background in web design, content creation, copywriting, and SEO. She is part of ‘s SEO & Localization team. In her free time, she likes to develop projects, read a book or watch a good movie.