Email Backup Software for Windows: IMAP Mailbox to PST, MBOX, EML

A synced mail app or a copy in files

Mail that shows up in a desktop mail program looks like it is already on the PC. Over IMAP that program mirrors the server. That is not a backup.

What you may have now

Mail synced to a desktop mail app

It displays what the provider holds right now and repeats every change made there.

Delete a message in webmail and it disappears from the PC after the next sync
A wrong mass delete on the phone reaches every device
Some mail apps hold only recent months on the PC

This app

A copy in files that stays as saved

A backup run reads the mail and writes files. After that the files do not depend on the provider.

A message deleted in webmail later stays in the saved copy
The files open in ordinary mail apps
The next run adds fresh mail to the same copy

Download

How to download and use the Email Backup Software & Mail Archiving Tool to PST and MBOX

Install and add the first mailbox

Download the Email Backup tool and install it on Windows 10 or 11. The first screen has two buttons. Connect a mailbox opens a list of mail services. Other IMAP mailbox is for a server that is not in that list.

Pick the service and sign in

Type the Email address. For a known domain the program sets the Email service itself once you leave the field, and for a hosted mailbox you choose it by hand. The server, port and encryption are filled in. Some services accept only an app password instead of your regular one, and the label of the password field tells you which. Click Test to check the connection stage by stage, then Connect.

Tick the folders

After sign-in the panel Folders to back up appears, with an email count next to every folder. Tick what you want to keep or click Select all. The line at the bottom adds up the selected folders and emails. Then click Next: format.

Choose the format, start, then add the next mailbox

On Save as pick EML, MBOX or PST and set the folder under Save to. Click Start backup. When the screen says Backup complete, click Back to mailbox. The Add mailbox button in the left panel starts the same four steps for your next address.

Features of the mail backup program

Ready templates and any IMAP host

Email Backup Software & Mail Archiving Tool to PST and MBOX has a ready template for each big webmail service and for hosted mail from GoDaddy, IONOS or Rackspace. Is yours missing? Pick the last item of the list and type the host, port and security yourself. Port 993 goes with SSL/TLS, port 143 with STARTTLS. That makes it an IMAP backup tool for a cPanel mailbox or your own domain too. If Gmail is the only mailbox you have, the separate Gmail backup software is the narrower pick.

Three open formats

Each run produces one format. EML and MBOX hold every email the way it arrived, headers and attachments included. Original dates stay as they were. PST is built for Outlook and follows other rules. The table further down lists them.

PST without Outlook installed

The app builds the Outlook data file itself, so the PC does not need Outlook. You get one PST per mailbox, named after the address. It is assembled at the end of the run, and the screen shows the percent while it builds. The next backup of that mailbox appends to the same file.

Repeat runs fetch only new mail

Return to a mailbox you have backed up before and log in. The Home screen then shows the count of new emails since the last backup. Click Download new emails and only those are fetched, as long as the destination stays the same. There is no scheduler, so every run waits for your click. A run you stopped yourself continues from the same email.

Folder tree kept as it is

What lands on disk repeats the layout of the mailbox. EML puts emails into Windows folders named like the mail folders. MBOX nests subfolders the way Thunderbird does. PST carries the whole tree inside one file. There are no filters by date or sender, so the choice is made per folder.

Read-only access

The app cannot delete an email, move it or flip it to read. Emails travel from the mail server straight to your disk and never pass through our servers. Your password is not stored, and you type it again in each new session.

Mail services with a ready template

Choose the service in the list and its server settings are filled in. A mailbox on your own domain usually goes through the last item.

Gmail (personal)

Yahoo Mail

iCloud Mail

AOL Mail

AT&T Mail

Comcast / Xfinity

Fastmail

GMX

GoDaddy Workspace Email

IONOS Mail

mail.com

mailbox.org

Namecheap Private Email

Posteo

Rackspace Email

Seznam.cz

T-Online

WEB.DE

Zoho Mail

Other IMAP server

Outlook.com, Hotmail and Microsoft 365 are not in the list. Neither are work or school Google accounts. The FAQ explains why.

PST, MBOX or EML: choose by the program that will open it

Decide where you will read the mail later and take the format that program opens.

Format	On disk	Opens in	Keep in mind
PST	A single Outlook data file for the mailbox.	Microsoft Outlook	Keeps subject and body, sender and recipients. The sent date, attachments and the read or unread state are kept too. Raw internet headers and follow-up flags are not carried over.
MBOX	One .mbox file per mail folder. Subfolders go into a .sbd folder next to the parent file.	Thunderbird, Apple Mail	Fewer files to copy than EML. Read marks are not written.
EML	A separate file for every email. File names start with the date and the subject.	Windows Mail, Thunderbird and most other mail apps	Good when you need one message as a file. Read marks are not written here either.

Download for Free

Four moments when your mail needs a copy on disk

Letters carried out of a server room into a box.

Your hosting plan is ending

The contract ends, and the addresses on your domain end with it. Before you cancel, sign in to every one of them and download what is there. The help pages of the old provider usually show the settings you have to enter.

A street mailbox with a closed sign and a bundle of saved letters beside it.

An address is about to be closed

Tick everything for one last complete run and look through a few of the results on your PC. Shut the address down only after that. The app only downloads and has no way to upload messages again, so do the test while the source is still there.

A folder of letters handed from an old desktop PC to a new laptop.

You bought a new computer

Years of mail move like any other documents. Carry the archive directory over on a USB stick, then load it into the mail app you run there. Outlook takes the PST, Thunderbird takes the MBOX.

An overfilled mail tray next to an empty shelf.

The inbox is out of space

New messages bounce because the quota is used up. Download the oldest and heaviest mail first and confirm it opens fine on your PC. What you clear at the provider after that is your call.

Who needs Email Backup Software & Mail Archiving Tool to PST and MBOX

People with three or four mailboxes

A Gmail address for daily mail, a Yahoo one for shopping sign-ups, an iCloud address that came with the phone. Buying a separate tool for each service makes little sense. Add the mailboxes one by one, and each gets its own folder under the backup root. For the Yahoo mailbox alone, the Yahoo Mail backup tool page has the full walkthrough.

Small-office owners with mail on a host

Mail for the whole office sits with a hosting company, and nobody on the team is an IT person. For a GoDaddy email backup pick the GoDaddy entry in the service list. Check first which kind of mailbox you were sold. GoDaddy also resells Microsoft 365, and the program does not connect to Microsoft mailboxes.

Whoever looks after other people's mail

You keep the mail of your parents or of a few clients in order. All their mailboxes sit in one list on the left, each with its own backup history. Each owner signs in to their own mailbox and you handle the rest. The interface comes in 20 languages, which helps when the owner reads a different language than you do.

What the trial does and what a license adds

The trial has no expiry date and no locked screens. It stops at a fixed number of emails in each folder.

What you get	Trial	LicensedAfter you enter a key
Emails saved from one folder	The newest 25	Every email
A mailbox with 10 folders	Up to 250 emails	The whole mailbox
EML, MBOX and PST output	✓	✓
Service templates and Other IMAP server	✓	✓
Choice of folders	✓	✓
Time limit	None	None
A license key is bound to one computer and is activated online. Run the backup again after activation: emails saved by the trial are skipped and the remaining ones are downloaded.	Download	Buy now From $ 14.99

Buy now

From $ 14.99

Download

A license key is bound to one computer and is activated online. Run the backup again after activation: emails saved by the trial are skipped and the remaining ones are downloaded.

Email Backup Software & Mail Archiving Tool to PST and MBOX

Price

from $ 14.99 / month

Version

3.3

File Size

67.7 Mb

Last updated on

21/08/26

Trial: 25 newest emails from each folder in any of the three formats, no expiry date

System Requirements

Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 (32/64 bit)
Intel i3, AMD Ryzen 5 or above
4 GB of RAM or above
NVIDIA® GeForce® series 8 and 8M, Intel® HD Graphics 2000, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5600, AMD Radeon™ R600, Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330, Mobility FirePro™ series, Radeon™ R5 M230 or higher graphics card with up-to-date drivers
1280 × 768 screen resolution, 32-bit color
1 GB of free hard disk space or above

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best software for backing up IMAP emails?

The one that reads any IMAP server and writes files you can open without it. Free command-line tools exist, and people who are at home in a terminal do well with them. Some of those tools sync one server to another instead of writing files. A desktop IMAP backup tool fits better when you want buttons and a folder of files at the end. Before you choose, check that it takes any server by host and port and writes open formats. A repeat run should fetch only new mail, and the mailbox should be opened read-only. Email Backup Software & Mail Archiving Tool to PST and MBOX does all four on Windows.

How can I export emails from my IMAP account to a PST file?

Short answer: connect the account and choose PST on the Save as screen. Long answer: the result is one data file with all ticked folders inside. Classic Outlook opens it from the File menu. Mind the size. Outlook 2010 and later accept a PST of up to 50 GB by default and the program does not split the file into parts. For a mailbox near that size MBOX or EML is the safer choice. Moving an AOL mailbox into Outlook this way? The AOL backup tool page covers that move.

How do I back up my emails to an external hard drive?

Plug the drive in before you start the backup. On the Save as screen click Browse next to Save to and pick a folder on that drive. The line under the field shows how much free space the drive has, and a warning appears before the start when space is short. If the drive fills up during a run, the backup stops safely and tells you. For later runs connect the same drive and keep the same folder. Otherwise the program cannot know what is already saved.

Does archiving old emails free up space?

Short answer: not by itself. Long answer: in most webmail the Archive button only moves an email out of the Inbox and it still counts toward your storage. Saving mail to disk does not free space either because nothing in the mailbox changes. Space comes back when you delete the emails at the provider and empty the Trash. Back up first. Then open a few saved emails and delete by hand.

How many years worth of emails should you keep?

No single number fits everyone. Tax papers and business contracts have retention periods set by law. They differ by country and by type of record, so check the rule that applies to you. Personal mail is your decision. We think sorting out which years to delete takes more time than the disk space is worth. Save the whole mailbox to files and keep that copy. After that clean the mailbox itself as hard as you like.

Where do I find my backup email?

In the folder shown under Save to. If you did not change it, that is the Email Backup folder inside Documents, with a subfolder named after the mailbox address. The Backup complete screen has an Open backup folder button, and the Home screen shows the path on the Saved to tile.

How can I backup all my emails?

Mailbox by mailbox. Connect the first one and look at the folder list. Most folders come ticked already. Spam and Trash are left without a tick when the server labels them that way, so tick them if you want them too. Select all ticks every folder at once, and in Gmail that adds All Mail, which holds every email a second time. Start the backup, then add the next mailbox and repeat. The program saves email only, so contacts and calendars are not included.

Is this the same as an email archiving program or a cloud backup service?

No, and the difference is where the mail ends up. An archiving program keeps mail in its own database, and you read and restore it through that program. A cloud backup service copies the mailbox to the vendor's storage, often for one mail platform only. Here the result is a set of EML, MBOX or PST files in a folder you choose. They stay readable after you uninstall the program. The trade-off is that nothing here puts mail back into the mailbox.

Which mailboxes can the program not connect to?

Microsoft mailboxes, Google Workspace accounts and mailboxes that offer POP3 only. Sign-in is by password or app password over IMAP. There is no Sign in with Google or Sign in with Microsoft window. That rules out Outlook.com and Hotmail, and Microsoft 365 with them. A work or school Google account is out as well, because an app password cannot be created there. Personal Gmail is fine.

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