Methods to Backup IMAP Emails Locally Using Microsoft Outlook

Written By Amrita Yadav
Updated on November 2nd, 2021

In this article, we will discuss easy ways to backup IMAP emails without losing the data.
Outlook is a full-featured email client that helps users to manage multiple email accounts. It allows several options to facilitate users. Apart from that, it helps you to migrate your mailbox files without using any additional tool. This method of email migration is known as IMAP migration.

Microsoft Outlook saves a copy of mailbox items as OST files. These files help you to access emails offline. However, if these files get damaged due to some reason, you become unable to open the email in Outlook. So, you should backup the emails to protect the valuable emails.

Why Backup IMAP Mails?

Apart from saving emails, there are many reasons to backup IMAP emails to the local drive. Below are some most common reasons that incline users to download their valuable data from the server.

Emails available online are at risk of data theft and malicious activities. Also, the Outlook server may get crashed due to any reason. So, the best way to protect your valuable information is by saving them to a personal device.
Migrating the Microsoft Outlook emails also helps you to backup the mailbox data in case of unintentional data loss or file corruption. Through the saved email files, you can restore the complete mailbox.
You also need to backup IMAP emails when you want to shift to another email client. If you want to migrate emails to another email account, you have to download the Microsoft Outlook emails first.

Read here: How To Do IMAP Migration In Office 365 Or Microsoft 365?

Manual Steps to Migrate IMAP Emails

Microsoft Outlook has an inbuilt option to migrate emails from the server to the system’s local drive. This way, you can protect valuable items from data loss. It is an IMAP backup free method to save the email files. The procedure to backup IMAP emails to your computer consists of the following steps:

Launch Microsoft Outlook and click on the File option in the menu bar.

After that, select the Open and Export button and choose the Import/Export option.
It will open the Import/Export dialogue box. Select the Export to a file option and press Next.

Then, click on the Outlook data file (.pst) and press the Next button.

After that, choose the mailbox folder you want to migrate. Click the Next button.

Finally, define the destination path for the resultant file using the Browse button and press the Finish button to complete the migration.

Limitations of the Manual Migration

The manual method helps users to export the Microsoft Outlook mailbox data to their system. However, it is not the ideal solution for everyone. It has some vulnerabilities that hinder the migration process.

It is a complicated and time-consuming way to save the mailbox files.
The risk of data loss is high in migrating data through manual techniques.
It moves only one file at a time. So, you have to perform the same operation for every desired email.
The technique is not suitable for large mailbox items. Also, you can not migrate other mailbox items like contacts, calendars, events, etc.

Because of all the above reasons, you need a more reliable and effective solution to your problem. IMAP Email Backup Tool is a comprehensive software that creates a backup of Outlook mailbox items without damaging the content. It is the automatic technique to migrate the emails from Microsoft Outlook.

Conclusion

Microsoft Outlook allows you to migrate your emails to your system through IMAP migration. The procedure to save the emails to a local drive is simple and effective. However, the process has some limitations. So, the best solution to backup IMAP emails is using an IMAP Backup Tool. It is a fast and effective method to save mailbox data. Even novice users can migrate their emails through this software.

About The Author:

Amrita Yadav