At work they sent you several emails entrusting you with a very important task: you have to save an email conversation on a USB stick and deliver it in time to your managers, so that they can have a copy of the information provided by email. Since you have no idea how to proceed, you have come to this guide of mine, trusting in my help, am I right?
In that case, you need to know that you are understood in the right place at the right time! In fact, in today’s guide, I will provide you with several practical solutions that will allow you to carry out the task that has been assigned to you. By reading this tutorial carefully you will in fact find a step by step explanation on how to save e-mail on a stick , first of all using the main Webmail services. Below, for greater completeness of information, I will also explain how you can save emails on a USB device even using some software for managing and downloading emails.
Are you curious about this introduction and are you looking forward to learning more? Okay then let’s not get lost in chat further and let’s start immediately. All you have to do is sit down comfortably and pay close attention to the information I will give you in the next chapters. Having said that, I just have to wish you a good read.
Index
- How to save e-mail messages on a stick via Webmail
- Outlook
- Gmail
- Yahoo
- Alice
- Professional webmails
- Programs to save e-mail on a stick
- Mail (Windows)
- Mail (macOS)
- Other programs to save e-mail on a stick
How to save e-mail messages on a stick via Webmail
If you need to save a copy of a specific email you have received or sent on a USB stick, and you want to proceed directly from the email web service you use, without downloading any software, I will show you how to do it.
In the following lines I will explain how to download an email in EML format from the browser (keeping formatting and attachments) and then view it on any computer. To open EML files you can in fact use one of the methods that I indicated in my guide on how to open eml files . Alternatively, continue reading the next paragraphs, I’ll tell you about software that manages email and that will allow you to view EML files directly .
Furthermore, I remind you that you can simply click on the Print button (located next to the message you want to save) to print an email in PDF format ; in this specific case, however, you will lose the ability to download the attachments.
Outlook
If you have an Outlook , Live or Hotmail account (which I told you about in this tutorial on how to create one), you will be pleased to know that it is possible to download individual e-mail messages on a stick directly from the Web service, Outlook.com . . Did not you know? Then I’ll immediately explain how to proceed.
First, go to the outlook.live.com website and log in with your Microsoft account credentials. Now select, from the left section of the interface, in order to view its contents in the right area. Then click on the (…) icon located at the top right of the message.
In the box that is shown to you, select the Download item to take a copy of the message on your PC in EML format . All you have to do is go to the Windows Downloads folder (or the one you have set up for browser downloads) and move the EML file to the USB stick. To find out more about it, I suggest you read my guide on how to transfer files from PC to USB stick .
Gmail
On Gmail you can download an e-mail message in EML format and then store it on a USB stick. Considering that Gmail messages are grouped by conversations (like most modern webmails), you will be able to download individual messages from these. So take note of this factor if you need to download an entire conversation.
The first thing you need to do is go to the google.com/gmail website and log in with your Google account . Once this is done, inside the mailbox, locate the message you want to download and click on it to open it. Now, click on the icon (…) on the right, next to the data relating to the sender / recipient and select the item Download the message from the box you see.
By doing so, you will download the message in EML format , which you can easily move to a USB stick, as I explained to you in this tutorial .
Yahoo
If you have a Yahoo email account , you will be happy to know that you can save a copy of your message sent or received in a slightly different way than what I showed you in the previous chapters dedicated to Outlook and Gmail. Let’s see together how to proceed.
First, connect to the mail.yahoo.com site and log in with your credentials. Now click on the message you want to save to open it. From the horizontal menu bar, located above the content of your message, click on the icon ( … ) and select the item View message in Raw format . A new page will open containing a code that you will need to save on your computer. To do this, press the right mouse button on the page and, from the context menu that will appear, click on the Save as item .
Now select the path of your key and enter a new name for the file you are about to save, adding the .eml extension at the end (replace the default .txt one). Then click on Save to save your message on your USB stick.
I remind you that this procedure that I have indicated refers to the use of the Google Chrome browser. However, you can perform these steps in the same way with a different browser; it will only change the button to save the web page to your computer.
Alice
If you have an Alice , TIM or TIN email account , you can save the email on a USB stick using the download function in EML format .
First, then, reach Alice’s Webmail at this address and log in with your email account. Once this is done, on the main screen, click on the mail message you want to download and then click on the Other item at the top.
In the box that is shown to you, click on Save as eml file and that’s it! All you have to do is move the file you just downloaded to the USB stick, following the instructions I gave you in this tutorial , if you need to.
Professional webmails
Many professional mailboxes, usually connected to purchased domains, use software pre-installed on the server that manage the e-mail accounts. Among these are RoundCube , a well-known e-mail client, but also others such as RainLoop or Horde , which stand out for their free and open source distribution character. I will now explain how to download e-mails using this Web client.
First, go to the panel of your professional Webmail (usually the address is webmail.domainname.extension ) and log in with your credentials. Now select the message you want to download, so as to highlight it.
On RoundCube , just click on the Actions button at the top and then on the Download> Source (.eml) items to download the file in EML format. If you have selected more than one conversation, the download will be available in MBOX or MAILDIR format . On RainLoop you just need to press the ▼ icon above the message header and press the Download as .eml file item to complete the operation.
If an explorer window appears asking you where to save this file, indicate the path to your USB key. If it does not appear, it means that you have downloaded the file to your computer, in the Downloads folder (default path). You will then need to navigate to that folder and move the file to the USB stick manually .
Programs to save e-mail on a stick
Do you need to download multiple e-mail messages and do not want to proceed manually with the methods I have just explained to you? Does your email service not support downloading of messages? If you find yourself in one of these cases, then proceed with the reading of this second part of my guide; I’ll show you some programs that you can use for archiving and opening messages on a USB stick.
Mail (Windows)
With Windows 10 and Windows 11 you can view your e-mail using the Mail application , which supports numerous e-mail services, including professional ones, through the IMAP and POP3 protocols (not recommended).
To be able to download a message, simply open the email client in question and set up an account from which you want to export your messages.
Now, from the left section, click on Folders> Inbox (or any other folder where your message is present) and click on the email of your interest. On the right screen of the application you will then be able to preview the message. From the horizontal bar at the top click on the button with the three dots and select the item Save as . Then select the path of your USB stick and enter the file name. Finally , press the Save button to export your message and any attachments to the pendrive.
The Mail application also allows you to open and view the files with the EML extension on your key. Simply double-click on them to automatically open them with the Mail app. If, on the other hand, Windows asks you which program you want to open files with the EML extension , probably the Mail application is not installed on your computer, or you have lost the association between the EML files and this application.
To download the Mail app, go to this link and click Download in the Store app so you can download from the Microsoft Store. If you want to apply EML file association, right click on an EML file and select Properties from the context menu. Then click Change and select the Mail application and then click Ok twice in a row.
Mail (macOS)
On Macs there is a system application for managing mail, called Mail , which allows you to configure your email account, regardless of the provider, thus being able to receive and send emails through it.
To proceed with the download of messages on a USB stick, open Mail and first select the box (from the list on the left) and then the message you want to export. From the menu bar at the top, then select the File> Save as items , choose the path relative to the USB key in the Located in field and then set the EML format, choosing the Message source format option from the Format item .
If, on the other hand, you want to download all the messages in a mailbox (for example those present in the Inbox ), go to the Mailbox menu > Export mailbox . You will be asked where you want the export to take place: then choose your USB stick and then click the Choose button . All the emails in that box will be exported directly to your USB stick.
To be able to view the content of the exported, you can always proceed with Mail, go to the File menu> Import mailboxes . Alternatively, you can simply select the single message and convert it to PDF , by clicking on File> Export as PDF .
Other programs to save e-mail on a stick
If you need other programs to be able to save emails to a USB stick, I’d be glad to know that the solutions don’t end there. I will point out other programs to download that will be useful for your purpose.
- Thunderbird( Windows / macOS / Linux ) – is one of the most famous programs for managing e-mail; it is completely free and without any limitations. Thunderbird requires installation on your operating system to manage e-mail accounts and to export mailboxes, I recommend using the ImportExportTools NG addon . Through this addon you can save individual messages (or entire boxes) in PDF, HTML or EML format on your USB stick. More info here .
- MailStore Home( Windows ) – is a free program available for Windows that allows it to be run also via a USB key, without requiring any installation. This way you can set up your email account, download, view and even compose your emails directly from the USB stick. This software allows the creation of archives to store your messages on your key and also allows you to import or export emails in EML or MBOX format.
- MailSteward( macOS ) – is an email client for macOS that allows you to configure any email account. Its features include the ability to export or import mailboxes in MBOX format. MailSteward is free but with a limitation of up to 15,000 messages.
