WEB BASED EMAIL SERVICES
Gmail
You can download individual emails in Gmail by selecting them, clicking the three vertical dots at the top right, then selecting ‘Download message’. Your email will now be saved as a ‘.eml’ file, which can then be viewed using email clients such as Thunderbird.
To download multiple emails, however, you’ll need to use Google’s Takeout service. While relatively easy to use, downloading then viewing emails in this way requires a few involved steps.
Unless you want to download all your emails, you first need to apply labels to those you want to save. To do this, use Gmail’s built-in search box to locate the emails you want, then tick the boxes to the left of each one. Next, right-click one of your selected messages, hover over ‘Label as’, then type the name of your new label (for example, Saved) on the top row and press Enter.
You could use an existing label (if you’ve already created some), but you’ll then be adding your messages to a group that already exists, so when you carry out the export process all the emails in that existing group will also be exported.
Open a new browser tab and go to Google’s Takeout service at www.snipca. com/33353. Click ‘Deselect all’ (by default, this tool is configured to export all of your data from every Google service), scroll down and tick the box to the right of Gmail. Next, click ‘All mail data included’, untick the box beside ‘Include all messages in Mail’, then click the name of the label you just created. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ‘Next step’. Leave ‘One-time archive’ selected and click ‘Create archive’. Google will combine the selected emails into a single file and email you a link from which you can download it.
Your email will be downloaded as an MBOX file, but viewing these also requires a bit of work. You need to install Thunderbird, along with the Importexporttools add-on (search for this by pressing Alt+t, then Add-ons, then install it). Once installed, right-click Local Folders in the left pane, then select ‘New Folder…’ and name it something like Gmail export.
Next, press Alt, T, then select Importexporttools, ‘Import mbox file’ (see screenshot above). Follow the onscreen instructions, selecting the MBOX file downloaded from Gmail. You should now see your saved emails in your new ‘Gmail export’ folder.
Outlook.com
Microsoft’s web-based email service doesn’t let you save individual emails, unlike its desktop client - take a look at the box below for a workaround. And although Outlook.com has a built-in export tool, it isn’t as flexible as Google’s in that it only lets you export your entire mailbox. This will be exported as a ‘.pst’ file, which can only be opened in the desktop version of Outlook, and the link to download this file can take up to four days to arrive by email.
If you’re willing to live with these limitations and press on regardless, log into your account, then click the settings (cog) icon at the top of the page, followed by ‘View all Outlook settings’ at the bottom of the sidebar that opens. Click General in the floating pane, followed by ‘Privacy and data’. At the top of this section, you’ll find the Export tool. Click the blue ‘Export mailbox’ button (see screenshot below) and Microsoft will bundle your emails into an archive.
Another option is to simply shift from using Outlook.com to a desktop client such as Thunderbird, which allows you to save emails more easily, as detailed above. To do this, open Thunderbird, go to Options, Account Settings, then click Account Actions, followed by ‘Add Mail Account…’. Now enter your Outlook.com email address and password, then choose IMAP when prompted (this means your email will also be available on Outlook.com).
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail seemingly has no interest in letting you save emails. You can’t save individual emails, nor does it have an export feature. One option is to forward emails you want to save to another free service, such as Gmail. Alternatively, if you only want to save individual emails, take a look at our box (left) on creating PDFS.