How to Backup Apple Mail Emails?

Backing up emails is crucial in the event of accidental deletions, application crashes, software or hardware malfunctions, or virus/malware attacks. By backing up older emails, you can free up space in a large mailbox. Additionally, backups may be necessary when upgrading or switching email applications. Having a backup of your emails is important as it facilitates the easy restoration of critical communications in any unforeseen event. For Apple Mail users looking to back up their emails, this article outlines various methods to secure Apple Mail data.

Methods to Backup Apple Mail Emails

If you need to back up only a few crucial Apple Mail emails, you can save them as EML or PDF files. For EML format, select the email, go to File > Save As, and choose Raw Message Source. This action will save the email as an .EML file. To save emails as PDFs, select the email, click on File, and then choose Export as PDF. However, if you require a backup of numerous emails or the entire mailbox, you should use the following methods.

Method 1: Backup Apple Mail Emails using Time Machine

Time Machine is a built-in backup feature on Mac that allows you to save a copy of your entire system, including emails and other data. This function is particularly useful for recovering data in cases such as a Mac crash, accidental deletion, or hardware failure. To back up your Apple Mail emails using Time Machine, follow the procedure outlined below:

1. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac device where you want to create Time Machine backup.

2. Then, go to Apple menu and select System Preferences. 

   

    

3. Click on Time Machine and turn it on (if it is not already on).

4. From the Time Machine dialog box, click on ?Select Backup Disk? and choose the external hard drive that you connected to your device. 

   

    

5. Now, click on the ?Options? at the bottom right and select the data that you want to backup. Here, select Mac Mail. Press ?Save? to apply the changes. 

   

    

6. Now, this will back up the data regularly from Apple Mail.

To access the data backup, you can click on the Time Machine icon from the menu bar. Alternatively, you can also open the Time Machine app from the application folder of your device.

Method 2: Backup Apple Mail Emails using Export Mailbox Feature

Apple Mail includes a feature known as 'Export Mailbox' which enables you to back up an entire mailbox or multiple mailboxes into an MBOX file. To back up your emails in bulk, simply use the 'Export Mailbox' feature within the Apple Mail application. Proceed with the following steps:

1. First, create a new mailbox. For this, open Apple Mail, click on Mailbox, and then select New Mailbox.
2. Then, select the emails that you want to back up and then drag and drop the selected emails to the New Mailbox you have created.
3. Now, right-click on the mailbox and then choose Export Mailbox.

4. Now, select the destination location to save the mailbox and then click ?Choose?. 

   

    

This will save the exported mailbox in the .MBOX file format.

Conclusion

It's crucial to maintain a backup of your Apple Mail emails, even if the risk of data loss or cyber-attacks seems minimal. We've outlined some straightforward and accessible methods for backing up Apple Mail emails. The 'Time Machine' feature can be used to back up Apple Mail data on an external drive. Additionally, the 'Export Mailbox' feature of Apple Mail allows you to back up email data in the MBOX file format.

Should you need to transfer Apple Mail emails to another email client, such as Outlook, you can convert the MBOX file (created with the Export Mailbox feature) using a specialized tool like Stellar Converter for MBOX. This sophisticated tool is tailored to convert MBOX files to Outlook PST files swiftly and effectively. It also enables you to save your Apple Mail MBOX file in various file formats, including EML and MSG. The tool is user-friendly and requires no technical expertise to operate.