The cloud is kind of like a double-edged sword. On one side, it is great because it allows you to sync up information almost instantly and access that information on another device. This is versus the more traditional methods of using external drives or USB sticks. The downside is that it typically requires an internet connection, so if your internet is down, you won’t be able to access its contents.
The majority of email services out there today pretty much rely on cloud technology, but if you’re the type that like to double or triple backup their files, here’s how you can go about saving and backing up your emails to your own alternative storage, whether it be a different cloud storage provider, or to your own computer or external hard drive.
How To Save And Backup All Emails (Universal, Easy Method)
Different email providers have different ways for users to export or save their emails. This means that it would be impossible to cover every single method out there, but if you want a quick and easy universal fix, this method should be able to get the job done, although there will be some limitations which we will mention later.
- Open the email that you want
- Prepare to Print it to bring up the Print dialog box
- Under Destination, click the drop down menu and select Save As PDF
- This means that instead of printing to paper, it will save a copy of that email as a PDF document that you can then choose to print later, store it on your computer, external drive, and so on.
This is a quick and easy method of saving emails, but like we mentioned earlier, there are limitations. For starters, this only works on one email at a time (although it will cover all the threads in that email). This is fine if you have one or two emails that you want to save, but if you plan to save or backup your entire email history, you’re going to be at your desk for days or weeks on end.
It also does not save email attachments, so those will need to be downloaded separately. Depending on how many attachments you have, this could also take a while, but like we said, this is a universally applicable method that’s quick and easy to pull off if you don’t plan on saving that many emails.
How To Save And Backup Your Gmail Emails
With Gmail, Google has actually provided users with a tool that makes it easy for you to export all your data out of Google, not just your emails. This will save all your emails and data into a .MBOX file that you can then store elsewhere and transfer to a different email client or service later on.
- Go to Google Takeout’s website
- Scroll down and look for Mail and ensure the box is checked. Like we said, Google Takeout is a tool that exports all your Google related information, so if you only want to export your emails, make sure that all the other boxes are unchecked.
- Click Next Step and follow the instructions and wait while your emails are being exported
- You will then receive an .MBOX file that essentially contains all of your emails
For those who are unfamiliar, .MBOX is a file format that is usually used by emails. It contains plain text so in theory you could open it in a text editor. However, it might not necessarily be formatted or categorized properly, so you’ll just be seeing a massive wall of text, but it can still be useful if you want to search for specific emails.
If you wish to open the .MBOX file, you can import it into your email service/app, with Mozilla’s Thunderbird being one of the more popular options out there.
How To Save And Backup Your Outlook Emails
Microsoft Outlook also makes it pretty easy to export and save your emails for backup purposes. If there are only a couple of emails that you want to save, you can simply click on them and drag them out onto your desktop and sort it out later, which is actually kind of a pretty neat trick.
However, if you want to save your entire collection of emails, here’s what you need to do:
- Go to File > Open & Export
- Choose Import/Export
- Select Export to a file
Unlike exporting your Gmail emails, Microsoft will save exported Outlook emails as a .PST file which you can then use to open in Outlook on another computer, or you can also use it with third-party email programs.
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