Electronic Mail has completely replaced the old forms of sending documents. If you don’t take backup then you might face some problems, as there can an email server failure anytime which can destroy your emails completely.
There is a chance that your email archive or PST files might corrupt, so, it is good to take backup. If you take backup of your emails on your USB drive, then you can access it anytime without internet.
There are a lot of methods to take backup of emails on USB drive. One of the most popular options is to use a utility like MailStore for downloading all your emails to the computer and then transferring it to your USB drive. MailStore is available for Windows. If you are on Mac, you can check this article.
Note: – Before starting the whole process, you have to enable POP access for all mails as shown in the image below.
- Google Mail
Setting >> Forwarding and POP/IMAP >>Tick Enable POP for all mail that arrives from now on.
Example of Google mail:
- Hotmail
Settings >> Options >> Under the Managing Your Account tab, click Connect devices and apps with POP >> Tick on enable and you’re one. - Yahoo Mail
POP is enabled by default in your account. If not then click on the cog wheel icon on top right, Settings >> Account >> Under Yahoo Account tab, Click Edit >> Tick POP and Click Save.
After enabling POP, follow the below steps to take backup of your emails on USB.
Download the MailStore from here.
Install MailStore using the setup download.
After installation, once you open you will see a Quick Access tab. Click “Archive Email” option and you’re good to go.
After this, under the Create Profile tab, click Advanced and then click Google Mail.
Once Google Mail box opens. Enter your details as stated in the image below.
After filling all the details, Click on Test button. When using for the first time, it will fail.
Now, go to your Gmail account, you will see that someone has tried to login to your account.
Now, click on the link to which I am pointing out in the image above and allow less secure app to get authenticated. What Google does is, they don’t allow third party apps to get authenticated. Once, you allow using Less Secure Apps, you’re ready to go. I recommend you to turn it off once you have taken the backup of your email. You can follow this link to turn it off. https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps
Now, login. You’ll see that you have been logged in. See the screenshot below.
Now, click on Run as shown in the above screenshot.
Now, choose the date of emails for making the backup.
Depending upon your mail size, it will take some time to automatically sync all of your emails to your hard disc.
Now, go to the start page and again the Quick Access box, choose Back to HDD or USB.
Browser to the folder where you want to take the backup, incase of USB Drive, choose your drive.
And Congratulations, you have successfully made the backup of your emails.
Taking backup of emails takes some time so you must do this in free time. Do share your views on how did you find process to take backup of email on USB.
Hi Harish,
These are some great tips. Backing up emails can be a really useful thing. It can help you recover emails that you may have lost accidentally. It also helps in keeping backup of some important conversions. You may want to remove some confidential conversations moved from online to an offline place.
Thanks for sharing these great tips.
Hello Brian
It really depends if emails that important for future reference then it is actually a good idea to save them on usb. Thanks for your visit and comment.
I really found this to be a usefull tool and never knew that we could create backup of mails on usb. Excellent Work
Thanks Sameer for your visit to my blog