iFastHostingHow to back up your email
Email lives on a different system to your website, so it needs its own backup — here is how with an ordinary email client.
A mailbox lives on a completely separate system from your website's files and database, so backing up your website does not back up your email — it needs its own copy, and the easiest way to get one is through an ordinary email client.
Why webmail alone is not a backup
Reading your mail through a browser is convenient, but every message stays exactly where it always was — on the mail server, inside the same account. That is the same shared-fate problem as any other backup stored only on the account it protects: if that account is compromised, suspended, or something goes wrong with a specific mailbox, a copy that only ever existed on the server goes with it. A real backup means a copy that exists somewhere else too.
The simplest method: a desktop email client
Connect the mailbox to a desktop client — Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or similar — using IMAP, and let it download every folder in full. Once that initial sync finishes, the client holds a genuine local copy of every message, separate from the server, updated automatically every time it checks for mail. For most people this alone is enough of a backup, provided the computer it lives on is itself backed up as part of your normal routine.
Most clients can also export mail to a standalone file — a .pst in Outlook, an .mbox in Apple Mail and Thunderbird. Doing this periodically gives you a single file you can store alongside your website backups, rather than depending on one specific computer's mail client staying set up correctly.
What to do with the copy once you have it
Treat it the same way as any other backup: keep more than one copy, and make sure at least one is not sitting on the same device as the mail client itself. An external drive or a cloud storage account both work. The 3-2-1 backup rule applies here just as it does to a website — the medium is different, but a mailbox copy that only exists in one place is exactly as fragile as a website backup in the same position.
If mail has already gone missing
A backup taken in advance is the ideal outcome, but if you are here because messages are already missing rather than planning ahead, recovering deleted emails covers what options exist after the fact, which are narrower and more time-sensitive than restoring from a copy you already made.
Related reading
Files and database, taken together, kept somewhere other than the account they protect — here are three ways to manage both.
How to recover deleted emailsWhere a deleted email actually goes before it is unrecoverable, and what to try before assuming it is lost.
The 3-2-1 backup rule, applied to websitesThree copies, on two kinds of storage, with one of them off-site — a decades-old backup rule that maps neatly onto a website.
A disaster recovery plan for a small websiteMost small sites have a backup, but no plan for actually using it — write the decisions down before you need them, not during.