Everything you need to know about email backups

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Whether you're considering transferring your hosting service to us, or just concerned about security or compliance, it's important to know how to back up your emails.

Before you can make an effective plan, you'll need to understand a few important points about email hosting. This guide will take you step by step through the process of identifying how your email accounts are set up, creating your first local backup, configuring your mail client (email program) to use the best settings for your needs, and setting up secure encrypted cloud backups.

By the end of this guide, you will know:

  • The most important aspect of managing your mail: Understanding the difference between POP3 and IMAP, the two options for for how your mail is set up.
  • What a mail client is, and Which version of which mail client you're using
  • Where your emails are stored on your device
  • What a 3-2-1 backup strategy is
  • How to set up your mail client
  • How to safely and securely backup up your email for:
    • transfers
    • safety, disaster recovery, and compliance

To make this guide as useful as possible, you can use the table of contents below to skip to the parts that apply to you. The essential steps are:

  1. Understand the difference between POP3 and IMAP
  2. Determine which mail client(s) you're using
  3. Perform a complete and safe local backup of your mailbox
  4. Adjust your mail client settings so that you're using the right settings for your needs
  5. Create and implement a regular backup schedule

POP3 vs IMAP

Understanding the differences between POP3 and IMAP is the most important step toward taking control of your mail and performing a complete and safe backup.

The most important differences between POP3 and IMAP
POP3 IMAP
Emails are downloaded.
  • This means that each email message exists in full as a set of files on your device.
  • The email message itself, and all attachments, signatures, etc, usually exist as separate files on your device.
  • However some mail clients, notably Microsoft Outlook, might handle your email files differently.
 Emails are synced.
  • This means that The files making up each email (the message itself, and all attachments, signatures, etc.) are stored on the server, and your mail client may or may not keep these files on your device as well.
  • When you sync your mail, your mail client fetches only the headers of the mail on the server and displays these to you as a list of the emails in your mailbox.
  • The content of an email is usually only downloaded to your device when you click an email to read it, however you can change this behaviour with a setting in your mail client.
Downloaded emails can be left on the server or removed from the server, and this behaviour is controlled by a setting in your mail client.

You can set your mail client to

  • never delete mail from the server
  • delete email from the server as soon as you download it
  • delete mail from the server after a certain number of days
  • delete email from the server when you delete it from your mail client
 Emails are left on the server at least until you delete them from your mail client.

When you delete an email, the settings in your mail client will determine what happens to that mail on the server:

  • The email could be deleted from the server right away
  • The email could be moved to the Deleted items or Trash folder, which:
    • can be set to empty when you close your mail client
    • can be set to empty periodically every few days
    • can be set to never empty automatically. This can lead to unexpected storage usage
Sent mail is not stored on the server. Sent mail may or may not be stored on the server.
If you've sorted your email into folders, these folders exist on your device, not on the server. Your custom folders exist on your device, and may or may not exist on the server.


Your emails are stored in your mail client as a database or a collection of files. Different mail clients and different versions of each mail client might store mail differently.

Mail clients

A mail client is the program you use to send and receive emails.

The most popular choices are Microsoft's Outlook, and Mozilla's Thunderbird.

Account settings are very similar in all mail clients, but the exact phrasing or name of each setting might differ between different programs, or between different versions of the same program.

Check your mail client version

The first step in backing up your emails is determining which version of which mail client you're using.

Outlook

Take a look at Which version of Outlook am I using to determine which Version of Outlook you're using.

Thunderbird

Click the main menu button, then go to the Help menu and choose Troubleshooting Information. In the new tab that opens, look for the version number under Application Basics.

Apple Mail

Open the Mail app, and click the Mail menu. Choose About Mail to see the version you're using.

Check whether your mail client is set up to use POP3 or IMAP

To find out which you're using, you'll need to check your email account settings. If you're not sure how to do this, click the name of your mail client below for instructions:

The backup process

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