You have received some emails that you must necessarily keep, so that you can view them on your computer even without an Internet connection. You’ve done some research on the web, but haven’t found any solutions that can fix your problem. This is the way it is, isn’t it? Then don’t worry: I’m here to help you.
In today’s guide, in fact, I will show you how to save e-mails both from the Webmails of the main providers accessible from the browser, and through the use of some clients for Windows and macOS. In addition, I will explain how to download certified mail messages , to make sure you keep each message and free up space on your mailbox.
I will therefore show you how to retrieve individual e-mail messages in EML format (which retain all information about the sender and the message itself, including attachments) or in MBOX format (a type of file that, in principle, is similar to the EML but contains multiple mails). Find everything explained below.
Index
- How to save email on PC
- Save your Gmail email
- Save your Outlook email
- How to save Thunderbird email
- How to save Alice’s email
- How to save Libero email on your PC
- How to save Windows Live Mail email
- How to save e-mail to an external hard drive
- How to save email on smartphones and tablets
- Save the certified e-mail
How to save email on PC
In the chapters you find below we will see together how to save e-mail on a computer; you will see that everything is easier to do than to say (regardless of the email service you use). Here are all the details.
Save your Gmail email
If you want to download the e-mail you receive on your Gmail box , the operation you need to do is very simple. First, log in to the “Big G” Webmail by opening this page and then logging in with your Google account .
Once this is done, click on the folder containing the message you are interested in (eg Inbox , Starred etc.) from the list at the top left and then open the email in question by clicking on its preview . Then press the ⋮ icon located at the top right and, in the box you see, select the item Download the message . This will allow you to download the email in EML format , which also contains the attachments (if any).
The newly obtained e-mail in EML format can be restored in the same e-mail box or in a different one (it is also possible to view it offline on the PC). It was easy, do you agree?
Wait, are you asking me how to save all email ? Just repeat the above step for every single email; the e-mail of your account is in any case associated with the latter and you can access it from any device via browser by opening the login page linked above or by downloading the Gmail application which I will talk about in detail later.
Save your Outlook email
The messages you receive in Outlook e-mail can be saved on your computer either via Webmail or via the client . If you have a Microsoft email account , you can access your email via Outlook Webmail from this page . Once you have reached the portal just linked, log in (if necessary) by entering the email address of your profile and the relative password in the appropriate fields .
In the main screen of the service, select the folder that contains the message you want to download from the list on the left, then open the email you are interested in by clicking on its preview . Once this is done, click on the icon … which you find at the top right and, in the screen that is shown to you, select the item Download .
In this way you have the possibility to save the email message you have selected in EML format. Do you use Outlook through the Outlook client that can be installed on Windows and macOS (included in the Microsoft 365 suite )? In this case, once you have started the program in question, open the email you are interested in by clicking on its preview (contained in one of the folders in the list on the left).
Next, go to File> Save As (you can save the message in various formats (eg HTML , MSG , MHT etc.).
How do you say? Do you also want to know how to save Outlook 2007 email ? The procedure to follow is the same as I just showed you, except for the File button which, in this case, is replaced by the one with the Microsoft Office logo (i.e. the button in the upper left corner).
And what about the Mail application , the client for managing emails that is “standard” on Windows 11 and Windows 10 ? The steps to follow, in this case, do not differ much from those seen for the Outlook Webmail.
First, open the Mail application and select the email you want to save on your computer by clicking on its preview . Now, click on the … button located at the top right and, in the proposed menu, select the item Save as . That’s all!
If you have any doubts about how Outlook works , I refer you to my dedicated tutorial.
How to save Thunderbird email
Even Thunderbird , the famous e-mail client downloadable for free on Windows, macOS and Linux, allows the saving of e-mail messages in a rather immediate way. To proceed in this sense, open one of the folders in the list on the left (eg Inbox , Sent Mail etc.) and click on the preview of the email you want to save to open it.
Now, click on the down arrow button on the right, in the lower half of the screen and, from the menu that is proposed to you, select the item Save as . At this point, you just have to decide in which format to save the file (eg HTML , EML and so on) through the drop-down menu of the window that opens and press the Save button . Repeat this last step for all the emails you want to download.
How to save Alice’s email
Do you use the Alice Mail Webmail service (which for some years has been renamed TIM Mail and is managed by the well-known telecommunications company )? Again, you have the option to save emails, but only in EML format . I’ll show you how to do this right away.
First, access the main page of the service in question and, if necessary, log in by entering your account credentials in the appropriate fields (press the envelope icon at the top right to log in). Once you are in front of the Webmail interface, select from the list on the left the folder (eg Inbox , Drafts , and so on) that contains the message (or messages) you are interested in and click on the box circular placed on the left, in correspondence with the name of the sender of the email.
Now click on the item Other present at the top and, from the menu that is shown to you, select the item Save as EML file . See how easy it was? Repeat this same step for all messages to be saved.
How to save Libero email on your PC
As in the case of Alice Mail , also through Libero Mail it is possible to download e-mail messages only in EML format . To proceed in this sense, open the Libero Mail main page and, if required, log in by typing the login data of your account in the appropriate fields.
Once this is done, select one of the e-mail folders in the list at the top left and locate the message to download. Continue, then, by clicking on the box located on the left, corresponding to the name of the sender of the email you are interested in and then click on the ≡ button located at the top. Now choose Save as file from the proposed menu . Nothing complex, don’t you think?
To perform a multiple download with a single operation, simply repeat this last step by checking the boxes of multiple messages. The downloaded messages will then automatically be placed in a compressed folder .
How to save Windows Live Mail email
Is it possible to download e-mail messages from the Windows Live Mail client , the program for viewing and managing e-mails pre-installed on older Microsoft operating systems (eg Windows 7 ) and then “replaced” by the Mail application ? You will probably be pleased to know that the answer to this question is yes.
To proceed, once you have opened Windows Live Mail, select the folder containing the message (or messages) you wish to save from the list on the left side of the client screen. Now click on the preview of the email you are interested in and then click on the File button located at the top left. Then select the Save item from the menu and then click on Save as file and choose the file format you prefer from the drop-down menu Save as of the window that has opened (eg. EML , HTML and so on). Simple, right?
How to save e-mail to an external hard drive
You have followed the directions I gave you to the letter and, now, all the emails you needed are saved on your computer. Since, however, you are often out and about and also work from different PCs than the one you usually use, it would be really useful to transfer the messages saved on an external hard drive , right?
If you use Windows , the above operation just copy and paste the files into the folder related to the device connected to your computer (you can also drag the various elements with the mouse) using the File Explorer which is integrated in Windows.
If, on the other hand, you are using macOS , you can repeat these same steps by copying and pasting the email icons (or dragging them with the mouse) from the location where they are saved to the folder for the external hard drive open in the macOS Finder .
Since, however, most Windows compatible external hard drives (featuring the NTFS file system) cannot be overwritten using the default macOS functions, you will first need to change the file system of these devices to Mac OS extended (if you intend use it only on Mac) or exFAT (if you want to use it on Windows too). I have given you all the details about it (and also other information on the procedure regarding Windows) in my tutorial on how to transfer files to an external hard drive .
How to save email on smartphones and tablets
Do you usually read e-mails on smartphones and / or tablets and would you like to know if in this case there is a system to download e-mails in order to always have them available? Unfortunately I am sorry to tell you that, at the time of writing, the mail applications for mobile devices (unlike the “counterparts” for computers) do not provide this possibility.
How, then, to overcome the problem? Simple: with the virtual print function and attached saving in PDF format . You must know, in fact, that it is enough to start printing a message (even when there is no printer connected to the device and, then, in fact, it is not necessary to actually print any file) to view a copy to download in PDF. I show you, in the list below, how to do this using the most popular apps for managing emails.
- Gmail( Android / iOS / iPadOS ) – open the message you want to save by pressing on its preview , go to ⁝> Print> Select printer> Save as PDF and then press the PDF button at the top right.
- Outlook( Android / iOS / iPadOS ) – open the email you want to download by tapping on its preview , press the second button ⁝ located at the bottom right and follow the same steps as in the previous paragraph on Gmail.
- Mail( iOS / iPadOS ) – open the message you want to save by pressing on its preview , press the arrow button at the bottom and repeat the steps seen in the previous paragraph on Gmail.
To learn more about the procedures I have just explained to you, I suggest you take a look at my tutorials on how to save an email in PDF and on the PDF virtual printer .
Save the certified e-mail
Even certified e-mail can be downloaded in EML or MBOX format , directly from the Webmail, depending on the provider chosen. In case the options I will talk about in the next paragraphs are not available, you can rely on Thunderbird , which I told you about in the above chapter of the tutorial, or on Outlook (you can find out how to configure the aforementioned clients in my guides on how to access the PEC and on how to set up certified e-mail on a PC ).
To save certified e-mail (for example Aruba PEC ), log in through the web panel of the certified e-mail service you use and, on the main screen, open an e-mail folder, for example Inbox . Once this is done, click on the preview of the message to download and select the items Other> Export message that you find in the top bar. This will download the certified email in EML format .
In case you want to download more messages, you will have to, instead, put a check mark in the boxes of all messages to be downloaded. Now, repeat the same operation that I indicated in the previous lines, to download the MBOX file .
