I Always Back Up My Email With This Free And Open-Source Tool
How-To Geek, Thursday, October 23rd, 2025
Pretty much everyone relies on a cloud email provider like Gmail, iCloud, or Outlook.com, but few consider what happens if you lose access to it due to a stolen account or forgotten password. Here's how to make sure you have your own copy of all your important emails.
Back up cloud email locally as losing account access can cost you all your mail.
Use Thunderbird (IMAP + add-ons) to download your email data and store it in a searchable local mailbox.
Regularly back up the downloaded emails using NAS storage or a backup tool, and prune your online mailbox for privacy.