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Archiving Emails

Archiving Emails

Over time your server space will get used up as more emails accumulate, taking up valuable disk space.

To keep everything running smoothly you'll want to periodically clean old emails from the server to free up space.

It's also a good idea to backup your data regularly. In either case, the following guides should help you make a copy of your email data for archiving off of the server.

The following info should help you achive this, depending on your chosen email client.

Creating A Local Email Backup

Microsoft Outlook

  1. Select File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
  2. Select Export to a file, and then select Next.
  3. Select Outlook Data File (.pst), and select Next.
  4. Select the mail folder you want to back up and select Next.
  5. Choose a location and name for your backup file, and then select Finish.
  6. If you want to ensure no one has access to your files, enter and confirm a password, and then select OK.

The messages that you keep in a .pst file are no different from other messages. You can forward, reply, or search through the stored messages as you do with other messages.

Follow this guide from Microsoft

Apple Mail

  1. Select the desired mailbox(es), then select Mailbox > Export Mailbox.
  2. Choose a folder or create a new folder for export, then click Choose. The mailboxes are exported as .mbox packages. 
  3. If you previously exported a mailbox, Mail doesn’t overwrite the existing .mbox file; it creates a new .mbox file.

Follow this guide from Apple

Thunderbird

Follow this guide from Mozilla

Direct Backup From Server

  1. Login to your hosting control panel
  2. Navigate tot he email section
  3. Select Backup

Or you can backup via the file manager

  1. Login to cpanel
  2. Navigate to the file manager
  3. Locate the '.mail' folder
  4. Select the whole folder or internal mailbox to backup
  5. Compress the directory
  6. Download then delete the compressed zip file

Remove the emails from the server

Once you're satisfied you have the mail archived and backed up on your local machine, you should remove old email from the server to free up space.

This can be done via your email client (if using an IMAP connection) by selecting the mail to delete and... deleting it!

Alternatively, you can do this directly via the cpanel file manager.