Archiving Your Email

Overview

This article covers the settings for archiving your email within the supported methods of accessing your email account.

This article contains instructions for:

macOS Mail

Method 1

  1. Click the [+] button on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
  2. Select New Mailbox... (If the sidebar with the plus is not visible use the Show button on the left to reveal it.)
  3. On the menu that appears next to the heading Location, choose the option On My Mac
  4. Enter in a name for the mailbox. Example: Archived Emails
  5. Begin dragging e-mails from your inbox into this new mailbox. Once they are in this folder they will no longer be on the server and will be permanently saved to your hard disk. 

Method 2

  1. Option-click on your existing inbox and select the Export Mailbox option.
  2. A menu will appear. Select your hard drive as the place to save your mailbox.
  3. You must now import that file back into Mail to view its contents. To do that, select File then Import Mailboxes.
  4. Click Import data from Files in .mbox format, and then click the Continue button.
  5. Go to the same place you saved the file on your hard drive and click on that file. Usually it’ll be named Inbox.mbox. The program will begin importing the files back into Mail. Depending on the size of the mailbox this can take several minutes.

Outlook 2016 on macOS

Manually Archiving E-mail

  1. From the Go menu select Folder List.
  2. Click the folder that you want to archive. 
  3. From the File menu select Archive.
  4. Select one of the following options:
    • Archive all folders to their AutoArchive settings: This allows you to use your AutoArchive settings to archive the Home Networking folder.
    • Archive this folder and all the subfolders: This allows you to archive the Home Networking folder using the options available in the Archive dialog box. In the Archive items older than list, choose a date from the date picker.
  5. To include items that you previously selected not to archive, select the Include items with Do not AutoArchive checked check box
  6. To archive the folder to a file other than the default archive PST file, click Browse, and then specify a different file name, such as Home Networking Archive.pst, and a location, such as My Documents.
  7. Click OK.

Outlook 2016 on Windows

Microsoft Outlook has a tool that allows you to manage your inbox’s allocation of space called Windows Inbox Clean Up Tool. This tool allows you to see whether your emails are stored on the server or on your hard drive.

  1. To access the Inbox Clean Up Tool, click File
  2. Select Mailbox Cleanup
  3. Next, click View Mailbox Size...
  4. This will display the size of your inbox and where the messages are stored, on the server or on your computer.
  5. Based on this you can decide if you need to archive your old e-mails and/or delete some of them off the server. 

Export your mailbox to a PST file using Outlook 2016

  1. At the top of your Outlook ribbon, choose File.
  2. Choose Open & Export (under Info) > Import/Export.
  3. Choose Export to a file > Next.
  4. Click Outlook Data File (.pst) > Next.
  5. Select the name of the email account to export (above Inbox). Make sure that the Include subfolders check box is selected. This ensures that everything in the account will be exported: Calendar, Contacts, and Inbox. Choose Next.
  6. Click Browse to select where to save the PST file. Enter a file name, and choose OK to continue. Otherwise, you can choose to leave it at the default.
    1. If you are exporting to an existing PST file, under Options, specify what to do when exporting items that already exist in the file.
  7. Choose Finish.
  8. Outlook begins the export immediately unless a new PST file is created or a password-protected file is used.
    1. If you’re creating an PST file, an optional password can help protect the file. When the Create Outlook Data File dialog box appears, enter the password in the Password and Verify Password boxes, and choose OK. In the Outlook Data File Password dialog box, enter the password, and choose OK.
    2. If you’re exporting to an existing PST file that is password protected, in the Outlook Data File Password dialog box, enter the password, then choose OK.

What data is exported?

  • When Outlook exports email, contacts, and calendar info to a PST file, it makes a copy of the information. Nothing leaves Outlook. You'll still see and have access to your email, contacts, and calendar in Outlook
  • When Outlook exports emails, it includes any attachments to the emails
  • Outlook does not export metadata such as:
    • folder properties (views, permissions, and AutoArchive settings)
    • message rules
    • blocked senders lists

Mozilla Thunderbird

  1. Click File, New, then select Folder
  2. In the window that appears enter a name for the new folder. Where it says Create as a subfolder of: choose Local Folders
  3. That folder will now appear in the column on the left hand side of the screen under the heading local folders. To move messages into this folder simply select messages from your inbox and drag them to your archived folder.

UOmail

To archive messages for UOmail, please follow the instructions for adding your mail account to a client and use the instructions above to use the client to create the archive file. 

Help

For assistance, please contact the Technology Service Desk.

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