Data loss might be less
frequent in the age of cloud storage and web apps but if you want to protect
locally stored data or you don’t have the option to use cloud storage to sync
your data to the cloud, creating a backup could help you prevent the data loss
or at least make its impact less significant.
Even if you are using your
email accounts with IMAP protocol, some data might be deleted by an accident and
it’s always better to have some kind of backup when it comes to important data.
Better safe than sorry, and that is why we are going to look into how to backup
your e mails.
Backing up your emails with eM Client
eM Client allows you to
export emails in .eml format and you can also backup e mails using the
built-in
backup feature, if you need Exchange or Gmail auto backup, or even backup of the
settings and much more. With eM Client there is a way as long as you enable an
option to “Download messages for offline use”. This can be found per
whole
account in Menu > Accounts under IMAP or Exchange Web
Services tabs, or per each
folder via right-click > Properties > Offline if you want to download just
selected folders.
Alternatively, you can create
a rule that will automatically move specific messages to local folders. Would
you like to find out more about automatic rules in eM Client?
Backup settings can be found in Menu > Settings > General > Backup to set
them
up periodically and if you need a quick current backup of your local data you
can use the Menu > Backup option.
If you have any settings,
local folders, POP accounts, or just messages downloaded for the offline use,
the backup will include all of those data automatically.
In the settings, you can
change the backup location if you need to back up to the external drive and the
backup frequency for the automatic backup can be enabled there too. When ready
to create a backup just hit a button and the app will do the rest for you.
A backup is an exact copy of
the current state of the app database and it cannot be used to view individual
files unless restored. If you would like to have access to the individual files
we recommend using Menu > File > Export option.
Backing up emails with Outlook app
If you are using Outlook as
your email client, there is a way to take backup of Outlook mails too.
Manual and automatic backup options are available and you can also export your
messages as individual files. Outlook allows you export .pst, .msg, and .csv
files and more.
Check
this article at eM Client blog to find out how to import Outlook files to eM
Client.
To manually export
Outlook.pst file, go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
In the export dialog Select
“Export to a file”, and proceed by clicking on “Next”.
On the next page select “Outlook Data File (.pst)” from the export
options list,
and click on “Next”.
Pick the mail folder for
backup and if needed, tick the box saying “Include subfolders” and again,
proceed by clicking on the “Next” button.
On the last step of the
export process, choose a target location and name for your backup file, then
select “Finish”.
Backup speed depends on the
size of folder contents but once it’s finished you should see outlook .pst file
in the location you have previously selected.
Save individual messages as .msg
If you wish to save one
specific Outlook message as a .msg file, double click on that message and in the
top left corner go to File > Save as.
Once the save as dialog
appears you can select the file location, name, and the file format.After
adjusting everything to your needs, click on “Save” and check that the
file is
present in the destination folder.
In case you would like to
know why is switching from Outlook to eM Client worth it, check out
this
article!