How do I back up my e-mails from free online Yahoo Mail and Gmail accounts?

I was using Outlook Express with WinXP for a long time to download my emails and it has the ability to add folders to save emails. OE has the option to backup your messages and address book. Then Windows Live Email came along to use with Vista and Win7(can't use OE with Vista and Win7).
I realized the other day that I forgot I had a backup of "stuff" from my Windows Live Email from last year when I did a clean install of Win7 from Vista. So I reinstalled Live Email and copied my stuff from my backup folder to Live Eamil. Hope this helps.
Greg

Disclaimer

First off, I'm not saying anything new that hasn't been said. Most people already stated the obvious and the simplest way is to have an e-mail client installed. Since this post is already too long I'll just link to step by step instructions around the web for each part that's relevant. If the links are broken, I'm sure you can search for new ones if you have the right keywords.

Also I use mostly Mac and only Gmail, so I have no self knowledge of other webmail today even while I've used them in the past and actually still have yahoo and hotmail accounts.


The Methods

There are basically 3 things you can do to backup e-mails from Gmail and many sub-options. As far as I know, there are just 2 things you can do, with no sub-options, on Yahoo and any other free webmail service.

Also except on Gmail (and maybe on Yahoo while YPOPS! works) you'll have to pay to be able to get the messages out there anyway.

(1). Using a software to retrieve e-mails to your machine, or even the whole webmail configuration

(2). Forwarding your e-mails as they arrive to any number of other places

(3). Using the webmail options

I'll discuss briefly each method and you can even use both at same time if so you wish.


(1). Retrieving from the webmail

You can do this in 2 different ways and once it's done you still can take another step of backup by using any backup method for your regular local files (files on your machine). This is not directly backing up webmail files, but you should be doing this already way before backing up your webmail. I myself do local backup of everything and online backups of important stuff.

As a side note, in general you'll hardly have over 10GB of emails, and most machines today come with at least 160GB of hard disk. You'll most likely have used at least 20GB of your machine space for regular stuff, if you don't save too much music, pictures or videos. So you'll most likely have 140GB free space for backing up your e-mail. Those are rough numbers, but in general you won't have to worry too much on backing up emails locally in your machine.

(1.A). Using regular mail client
keywords: mail backup

You can get Mozilla Thunderbird (either for Windows Mac or Linux) or any other mail client. Mail from Apple is great, Mozilla is quite default on Linux but I highly advice against Outlook Express - get Outlook if you must. In general if you want security and less bugs you have to get away from main stream, and that is Microsoft today. There's also Opera Mail, also for every platform, but that's quite techy. I highly advise using Thunderbird. There are enough step by step instructions online for installing it and configuring it with each webmail you wish:

Installing Thunderbird official link: http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq#install (it's just download and click click, really)

Configuring Gmail on TB: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=38343

Configuring Yahoo on TB: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100110124707AAVwbX1

Others for TB: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_accounts_in_Thunderbird_for_popular_email_providers

Either configuring POP, which is the simplest way, or IMAP, which can be accomplished and will save more info about your mailbox but it's a LOT harder to setup, you will mostly be backing up your mails only. If you ever want to restore them to your webmail, you'll have a lot of work to do (either hosting mail server on your machine or pushing the files to a server somehow), it won't be easy at all, and you won't get your webmail configurations back - if you have any. That's why the method B might be suitable for you, and you can, once again, even use both - just remember you'll need double the space on your machine.

(1.B). Using specific software for each webmail
keywords: mail backup restore

While this is easy to setup, it's highly dependable on the software rather than on standard protocols, so it's good while it exists and has fairly uncertain future (although your backup won't ever be lost and will be searchable within your own machine). So this isn't really a solution for most webmails. Even on Gmail things can get ugly to restore.

I only know a Gmail option here the "Gmail Backup". It saves not only the mail messages, but also your configurations, like labels. And, more importantly, it is able to restore your emails back to the webmail, or even into another account if you so wish:
http://www.gmail-backup.com/


(2). Forward email to another server
keywords: mail forward

Make no mistake, forwarding have to be to another server - not your machine. Let's say you have name@gmail.com and name@yourisp.com if you configure gmail to forward to yourisp and you think you're getting them on your machine, that's because it first goes to yourisp server and then you use method (1) to retrieve it from the server.

Again, this method only backup the mail message data, nothing else.

People suggested to forward to your ISP (Internet Service Provider). That's just one method. You can forward to any number of places, including another webmail and, my favorite method, to google groups.

The advantage here is you don't have to turn on your machine. It is automatic and able to create high redundancy easily.

I won't divide this into 2 or more methods because it's already a long post and I think this goes beyond the question, but it's worth citing and letting you know.

To configure this all you have to know is the destination e-mail address and where to set it up on your webmail:

Forwarding on Google: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10957

Forwarding on Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/tutorials/cg/mail/cg_access5.html

Using Google Groups original article: http://lifehacker.com/248778/use-google-groups-to-back-up-your-gmail-account


(3). Webmail already provides backup options
keywords: offline

This is no backup per say, but Gmail offers offline sync. That will save your messages on your machine, and you can access them going to gmail.com on your browser even without internet access. But while it will save all recent and most important messages (marked with star or some labels) it won't save every message and if anything happens to your account you will mostly have no simple way to read them.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-in-labs-offline-gmail.html

Again I apologize as I know no similar solution on other webmail services.


A final note as a google fan, here is a website made by google employees listing ways to backup your data from other google stuff: http://www.dataliberation.org/

I use a software like Outlook to download all of my email and select "do not remove" on preferences. When my on-line mailbox gets full, I make sure I have downloaded all email and then clean out my messages on my gmail or other POP accounts. If you are using an filing system on your gmail, it will be important to download your email to Outlook before you file, because it only downloads what is in your inbox. For extra precaution, sign up for a low-cost back up service to sync your Outlook pst file in case your hard drive crashes. I use sugarsync, When you get a new computer or hard drive you can use your on-line backup service to reload your new Outlook effortlessly. I hope this helps you keep your e-experience on the cloud with confidence that you are not going to loose important information! I have found it invaluable to be able to get to any information for business or personal from any computer connected to the internet, but am like you... so I've developed some double back up systems for everything. It may take a little more effort to maintain the back up systems but that time is returned in spades by operating on the cloud.

For Gmail, an easy option is Backupify. I have been using it and it works well -- it's an online backup option.

Unfortunately Isabelle there isn't any way to backup your data from your online e-mail account because the data is stored on a remote server. Unless you save each message separately including the attachments which can be a hassel! These free online services usually have server-side commercial antivirus programs installed, I know yahoo uses Norton Antivirus. The only way you can backup your e-mails is to use a locally installed application such as Microsoft's Outlook or Outlook Express which is the free version of Outlook. These programs store your data on your computer instead of using a remote server, and is usually shipped with the windows operating system. If you are using Windows and it is not installed, you would have to add it using the "Add New Programs" button under the control panel and have your operating system disk in the drive. There is however a risk when using locally installed software for your e-mail. If for example you obtain a virus, then your e-mail messages could be destroyed. So, I would recommend sticking with Yahoo and trust the commercial antivirus software! I have been using Yahoo for years and love it.

Just copy and paste all your emails on to Word then back them up onto CD

If you want to backup your e-mail onto your computer it's very simple.

Just use Mozilla Thunderbird or Outlook Express.

The way to do it on Gmail is really easy, as for Yahoo not too sure as don't use Yahoo.

On Gmail, just click on Settings in your Gmail account (top right hand corner near your username).

Then in the settings window that appears, click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP

Under POP Download section set Enable POP for all mail and make sure the setting is set to "Keep Google Mail's copy in the inbox" (you can also set it to the other options but bear in mind that if you set it to delete then you will only have one copy of the e-mails, and that will be on the PC that you used Thunderbird or Outlook on and not Gmail).

Also if you look on that screen there is also a link to Configuration Instructions, if you click on that link it will take you to a page that shows you how to set up your e-mail program, like Thunderbird, or Outlook Express.

For ease I would highly recommend using Thunderbird rather than Outlook as Thunderbird has all the GMail servers already built in to it.

For Thunderbird just go to the "Tools" menu, in Thunderbird and click "Account Settings...".

In the Account Settings box click on "Add Account..."

Select Gmail from the list and click Next

Enter Your Name and Gmail address

Click Next and then click Finish.

All the other settings will be automatically set up for you.

When you click on the Get Mail icon in Thunderbird it will then ask you for your Gmail account. If this computer is only going to be used by you (and anyone else that you don't mind reading your e-mail) tick the box "remember password" and then you don't need to enter your password again.

It will then contact Gmail and download all your e-mail to your computer.

That is it your done.

I use this to back up e-mails, 1st open an e-mail and RIGHT click the mouse, and then click SELECT ALL then COPY. Then you can paste it onto word doc. I do this to e-mails which i need all the time. Make a new folder and call "emails". This may help in the short term.

The advantage of Yahoo email is that you can access it from almost anywhere, like at a public library computer while traveling in another state.

However, there are times when I want to save or reprint or otherwise handle my emails on my own computer of choice and while offline. The only way I have found to do this is with a program that saves emails to my own HD. I used to use Eudora for email and it saved all messages to my HD. I think Outlook may also do this.


I think that sometime soon I will attempt to open a (free) Eudora email account again. (They also offer paid premium services) I have failed in that attempt a couple of times. The procedure is not user-friendly, in my experience. It is supposed to import all my Yahoo messages and erase them from Yahoo after it does this.

Once they are on your HD, you can delete or backup them as you choose, of course.

Backupify is a new paid service to back up your cloud. This seems to be a good solution to keeping your information safe. It is a new service and there is always the question of how long will it last but you can get your info restored to the site.

What they back up:
Flickr
Twitter
Delicious
Zoho
Google Docs

Services in Beta

Wordpress
Basecamp
Gmail
Facebook
FriendFeed
Blogger
Hotmail

Picasa Web Albums

Services Coming Soon
Youtube
Xmarks
RssFeed
Tumblr

Check out their pages:
http://www.backupify.com/how-it-works.php
http://www.backupify.com/faq.php

Mac

The best strategy is to cut and paste the content of the email to the clipboard and then paste it in a blank wordprocessing file. Then simply save the file to your hard drive, and if it is really important save it to DVD or CD as well. The file will also be saved on the backup system.

Being free doesn't mean software or a service is bad or unreliable. I have used Yahoo for years and never lost a thing. With my ISP web mail, some of my emails vanished and I was told there was nothing that could be done. Needless to say I only use Yahoo now. I wouldn't let your fear of freeware cause you to go to extremes trying to protect what is very safe already. I have used free virus and adware protection for years and I have less problems than my friends who pay big buck for software because they think freeware is bad. There is some great freeware out there if you know where to look and how to use it. Yahoo and Gmail haven't got where they are today by being unreliable. If you want to pay for your web mail, pay Yahoo for their add free version. Its dirt cheap. Let Yahoo store your email for you.

I too use G-mail as my primary mail server. But I also have Office 2007 installed and therefore use Microsoft Outlook as my POP server from the G-mail account. All of my e-mail therefore goes to both places. I generally do not empty the messages on the g-mail server account for about a month whereas I daily clean up my Outlook server. But if I want to be sure I don't lose any important e-mails I simply do not delete them from my Outlook server. They are stored on my computer...not on a remote server like G-mail's are.

Just use your G-Mail account you never have to delete any e-mails they give you so much space to use, either keep them in e-mail folds
or just archive them. You could also forward them to another account
or just turn them into PDF files, you worry to much

For YAHOO email. You can save it to your hard drive. Just right click on the print button and a menu will appear with "save as" in the middle. Click on it & give it a file name & where you want to save it to.