Saving copies of Emails on local Storage

[#1]

YOU NEED to get a 3rd party e mail client, which allows you to back up your e mails directly to your hard drive rather than depend on ISP's. eg THUNDERBIRD/ OUTLOOK apps.

[#2]

I've been looking for advice about email back up.
I use Outlook 365 - How do I "back up emails directly to my hard drive" (for security) but still have them on the email server so that they are accessible from all my other devices?

Thanks

Ian

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Full quote of preceding post removed as per Forum rules.

[#3]

Moderator's note:
Thread split from  here: https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Archived-mailbox-Request-for-it-to-be-unarchived-here-Part-2/m-p...

[#4]

---

@IMM wrote:

I've been looking for advice about email back up.
I use Outlook 365 - How do I "back up emails directly to my hard drive" (for security) but still have them on the email server so that they are accessible from all my other devices?

---

I use Outlook 365 and can only see two ways to back up emails.

The first is to right click on an email account and click 'Open file location' and simply make a copy of the ost file to save elsewhere. But this would need to be done regularly.

The other option I can see is to right click on a mail box and select 'Properties' then select the 'AutoArchive' tab. This isn't something I have tried but looking at the options you can change the folder where the archive is saved.

[#5]

@Mav Thanks for your response.

My desktop is backed up pretty much every day - so I do have the ost files. I'm not exactly sure how I would restore my emails if they disappeared from the Plusnet's email server. If I was offline, I guess I could restore the ost file, I think I would then see my emails in outlook - however if I then went online and Outlook synced with the server would they all disappear again?

The last time I used Archive (admittedly some time ago) Outlook put the emails into a different "folder" (hosted on my PC) and removed them from the email server. I then can't see them from my other devices (which sync with Plusnet's email server).

That is the reason that I was fully committed to the "leave everything on the email server so it is available from everywhere" approach. However having read a number of instances here where someone has lost all of their emails (either due to Plusnet or user error) and have been unable to get them back from Plusnet's backups, I'm now a little nervous and am thinking that I need to do something to be able to recover from a disaster.

Ian

[#6]

With help from @MisterW I moved my domains to Mythic Beasts as well as all emails accounts. So far they have been very robust and have no issues using Outlook365 with them.

[#7]

I've also registered a new domain with Mythic Beasts. I'm slowly moving my emails to it but I've 20 years of contacts who know my email as xxx@yyyyy.plusnet.com. 
I've also yet to persuade the other half that she wants to go through the same process (her own mailbox on my domain).

To be fair, my experience of Plusnet email has been robust - but for a few it is not. That could also be true of Mythic Beasts - as they don't have their own user forums, I'm not sure how we'd know if some of their users had suffered problems.

Ian

[#8]

I think you'll find that some people are still using Plusnet for their connection to the Internet, but have moved domain registrations, web hosting, mail and telephone provision to solutions external to Plusnet. It is my impression that these 'added extras' are no longer part of their core product offerings. If one signs up as a new customer, one doesn't get these.

It is a bit of a journey untangling it all. But at the end of the day, it leaves one in a place where one can haggle about the price of the connection without having to worry about all the 'added extras'.

[#9]

@IMM 

I suspect trhat in the twenty years that you have had a free email address that the importance of a relaible email service has moved on. Today, emails tend to be a vital part of communications, previously the domain of the postal service. In my view this needs a more robust service than relying on a freebie service tied to a single Internet provider. A professional alternative is not that expensive.

If you register your own domain (<£10 per year) you can if you wish transfer that to a different registrar. You can if you wish take out an email service with either the registrar or another compay (circa £20 per year). Apart from the UK domain registration agency (Nominet), his means that you are no longer tied to any third party with respect to risking losing you email address.

It's very tempting to stick with the freebie status quo but all that does is lock you in even deeper.

With local backup files, if I am using one I always make a point of copying and renaming the copy by adding the date of the copy to the file name before using the back up.

[#10]

@Baldrick1 , @greygit1 Thanks both for your input.
Indeed, the reason I've recently registered my own domain name with Mythic Beasts and started to move my email contacts to it, is to loosen the tie-in with Plusnet and enable a move to an alternative supplier should I wish to move. It is however, quite a task to change all of my website logins to the new email address - some do not have the facility to do it online and require you to contact them by other means. Also, I'm sure that I'll miss some organisations that have my email address on file but only contact me very occasionally. Hopefully I'll pick these up over time whilst I've still got the Plusnet account.

I do worry that my other half will struggle with things like domain name registration, email hosts, (VOIP) etc. if I'm not around to organise them for her. She uses email but has zero interest or aptitude for what is in the background to make it work. I sometimes wonder whether it would be better for her to use a "Free account" from one of the big providers eg Microsoft or Gmail rather than a mailbox on my domain name. At least that way it would continue to work seamlessly if I was no longer here to support her.

Anyway this has drifted off subject a bit - the original question was about how to backup (and restore) emails locally just in case something "bad" happens at the IMAP email server  - whoever I may be using at the time.

Thanks

Ian