Back up my email messages and contacts data

Your email contains vital information, and exporting your mailbox helps protect this data against unexpected losses, facilitate migration between email services, and ensure you have access to your messages even during service disruptions.

Outlook

Professional Email: To export a copy of your mailbox using Outlook, check out this article from Microsoft: Export emails, contacts, and calendar items to Outlook using a .pst file

Microsoft 365: To export a copy of your mailbox using Outlook on the web, Outlook for Windows, or Outlook for Mac, check out our article: Export or backup my contacts, calendar, email, and tasks

Windows Mail

To export emails and contacts from Windows Mail or People and import them to Outlook, check out this article from Microsoft: Export emails and contacts from Windows Mail or People and import to new Outlook

Apple Mail

To import or export mailboxes in Apple Mail, check out this article from Apple: Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac

Thunderbird

To back up your data in Thunderbird, check out this article from Mozilla: How to export and import your Thunderbird data

More info

• Find out how to save a single message as a file in Outlook with Microsoft 365 or Webmail or Outlook with Professional Email.
• If you need to keep a backup of your data for regulatory or compliance reasons, consider the Email Archiving add-on for Microsoft 365. It must be added to all mailboxes in your organization.
• For a robust solution without the need for regulatory compliance, check out the Email Backup add-on for Microsoft 365. You can add Email Backup to individual mailboxes without having to add it to the entire organization.