How to archive an email account before you close it or lose access

What a complete copy includes

A useful archive is more than the inbox. Make a list before you start:

• Mail in every folder, including Sent, Archive and any folders or labels you created. Sent mail is often the part people miss most later.
• Attachments. They are stored inside the messages, so a full mail export includes them.
• Contacts, usually exported separately as a vCard (.vcf) or CSV file.
• Calendar, usually exported separately as an iCalendar (.ics) file.
• Anything tied to the address. Note which websites, banks and services use this email for sign-in or password resets, and change them to an address you’ll keep before the account closes.

Gmail and Google Workspace accounts

Google’s tool for this is Google Takeout at takeout.google.com. Sign in to the account, click Deselect all, then tick what you want: Mail (exported as MBOX), Contacts and Calendar. Create the export, wait for Google’s email, and download every part before the links expire. Our Takeout guide has each screen, and common Takeout problems helps if an export fails or comes out smaller than expected.

The Mail export is one large MBOX file holding all your mail, with each message’s labels recorded inside it, so the folder structure can be rebuilt later.

If it’s a work or school account

Google Workspace administrators decide whether Takeout is available, and can turn it off for some or all services. If Mail is missing from Takeout, or Takeout says services are unavailable, that is an admin setting, not a fault. Ask your IT team: they may enable it for you, export the mail for you, or, for schools, offer a tool to transfer data to a personal Google account.

Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 accounts

Microsoft’s route for both Outlook.com and work Microsoft 365 mailboxes is to export a PST file from desktop Outlook on Windows. Microsoft’s own help page for Outlook.com says you need a desktop version of Outlook to export the mailbox, and mentions a trial or classic Outlook’s reduced functionality mode if you don’t have a subscription. Older guides describe an export button in Outlook.com’s web settings; Microsoft’s current instructions don’t mention it, so don’t count on it.

Classic Outlook for Windows

1. Add the account to Outlook and let it finish downloading.
2. Choose File → Open & Export → Import/Export → Export to a file, then Outlook Data File (.pst).
3. Select the account at the top, keep Include subfolders ticked, choose where to save the file and click Finish.

The PST includes mail, contacts and calendar. The new Outlook for Windows can export too, but Microsoft says it can’t yet export calendar and contact items to PST, so it is mail only there. On a Mac, legacy Outlook exports an .olm file instead of a PST.

Yahoo Mail

Yahoo has a download-your-data request in its privacy controls. Under Manage Your Information, find Download and view your data, choose the products to include, and submit the request. Yahoo says it can take up to 30 days for the download to be ready, and the download is then available for 30 days. Yahoo’s help notes that account data comes as JSON files, which are not easy to read on their own.

Because of the wait, many people also make a working copy of the mail through IMAP with Thunderbird, as described next. That gives you ordinary mailbox files straight away, and the official download is a backup of the backup.

Any other provider: download it with Thunderbird

Almost every mail service supports IMAP, and Thunderbird is a free app for Windows, Mac and Linux that can download a full copy of an IMAP account. It stores each folder as an MBOX file on your computer.

1. Install Thunderbird and add the account. For most big providers it finds the server settings itself.
2. In the account’s settings, open Synchronization & Storage and make sure messages are kept on this computer for all folders (the Advanced button lets you choose folders).
3. Click through each folder and wait until Thunderbird has finished downloading. Large accounts can take hours.
4. Copy the mail into Local Folders, which live only on your computer. Mail left in the IMAP account is still linked to the server, so if the server deletes it, Thunderbird may remove its copy too.

Thunderbird’s menus change between versions, so the exact wording may differ. Our guide to exporting MBOX from Thunderbird and the Thunderbird guide show where the files end up in your profile.

Choosing a format: MBOX, PST, or both

For a long-term archive, MBOX is the safer base: it is plain text and many apps can read it. PST is handy if you live in Outlook and want to search the old mail next to your current mail. Our MBOX vs PST comparison goes deeper, and email file formats explained covers EML, OLM and the rest.

If you can, keep both. Storage is cheap, and two formats protect you against one app disappearing. If your export is MBOX and you want a PST too, you can convert it: MoveMyInbox turns MBOX files into one Unicode PST in your browser, keeping folders (Gmail labels become folders), attachments and read and flagged status. It only converts MBOX to PST. Uploads are deleted as soon as the PST is ready, and the PST after 7 days, so download it promptly.

Check the archive before the account goes

An export you never opened is a hope, not a backup. While you still have access to the account:

1. Open it. Load the MBOX in Thunderbird (see how to open an MBOX file) or the PST in Outlook.
2. Compare counts. Pick a few folders and compare message counts with the webmail. Small differences can come from how a provider counts conversations, but large gaps mean something is missing.
3. Check the oldest mail. Search for something from your first year with the account.
4. Open attachments from a few messages, old and new.
5. Check Sent mail, and import the contacts and calendar files somewhere to make sure they open.

If the account stays open a while after the export, new mail keeps arriving. Run a final export close to the last day, or set up forwarding to your new address.

Store it safely: the 3-2-1 rule

A single copy on a laptop is one spilled coffee from gone. The 3-2-1 rule is a simple standard for anything you can’t replace:

• 3 copies of the archive,
• on 2 different kinds of storage, such as your computer and an external drive,
• with 1 copy off-site, such as a cloud storage service or a drive kept somewhere else.

A few practical tips:

• Name files clearly, for example work-mail-2015-2026.mbox, and keep a short note of where they came from.
• Use an exFAT or NTFS external drive for big files; FAT32 can’t store files larger than 4 GB.
• Email archives are full of personal data. Encrypt the drive or the cloud folder where you keep them.
• Once a year, open the archive to make sure the drive and files still work.

For a Gmail-specific routine, see how to back up your Gmail to a PST file.

Frequently asked questions