The horrible thought hit me: what if the email service dies? Like permanently goes away (as yahoo groups did). I’d lose years and years of information. So, I went to yahoo help and found there is no export of emails provided: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/backup-email-options-yahoo-mail-sln5033.html. These are your options:
- Forward emails to another email address at another service
- Print emails (or print to pdf)
- Copy and paste emails into a document
- Use a 3rd party app to download your emails
The first three deal with individual emails—talk about time consuming!!! The latter provides a link to more information: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/download-email-yahoo-mail-third-party-sln28681.html. Many creatives don’t have technical skills and may be frustrated following through with this method. I’m fairly technical and find it a bit intimidating. Plus, it has to periodically be redone.
Next, I searched on google for “Yahoo Email Backup Software.” Here are some I found that are rated well. Most work for PCs and Macs.
- https://www.adviksoft.com/yahoo/backup.html – $39.
- https://www.systoolsgroup.com/yahoo-backup.html – $49 or $79 for both yahoo and gmail back up.
- https://www.softaken.com/yahoo-backup-pro – $29.
- https://www.cigatisolutions.com/yahoo-email-backup-tool/ – $69.
- https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-home/ – free.
- https://www.sysinfotools.com/yahoo-backup.php – $69.
As yet, I haven’t determined which one I’ll try. I am wary of the free app for such a serious endeavor.
Gmail, I discovered, has a native backup tool. Here’s a how to: https://computer.howstuffworks.com/e-mail-messaging/back-up-gmail.htm. The article says, “Just remember that this method will only back up incoming emails.” The article also mentions third party backup options.
Right now it all seems overwhelming to me. So, I think it’s going on my “to do” list. Meanwhile, if anyone else has experience with this and wants to share, I’d love to hear what you do/have done.
I’d be concerned using any external tool (especially a free one, as nothing is truly free) for sensitive emails. I’d likely prefer to save into my documents only the few emails that really matter.
The issue of digital archiving is truly part of our brave new world, isn’t it? Easily created, one click and—POOF. Let us know what you chose to do and how it went, when you get to it.