...you should be able to save your email directly to a file. Details would depend on which webmail you're using, and you didn't provide that info. I'm afraid my dog broke my crystal ball.
But what's wrong with an email client? If they have features you don't want to use, so what? Why is that a problem? You certainly don't have to worry about disk space in this day and age.
Is there a way to save an email I get in outlook.com to my local hdd either as an htm or txt?
Seems the only way one can do this is to use a desktop email client.
Problem is all these email clients have contacts and calendar, which I don't want. I know I don't have to use them if I want.
James

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