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Saturday, December 16th, 2023 5:47 PM

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backing up email to computer

I have years worth of emails in my inbox and would like to create a hard backup to my computer (Mac). I use macmail. How would I go about doing this?

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

11 months ago

The simple way?  Add your email account to the Mac mail program, but don't use the IMAP server, use the POP server.  POP mail makes a local copy.    If you access your mail from a second device and delete things using the IMAP server, those changes will sync when you check  your mail on the 1st device.  It won't with POP.   If Xfinity's server eats your mail or loses it, you'll still have a local copy that won't get wiped out when you Sync mail.

You can actually have both setup both at the same time if you want.  The server settings are here:

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/email-client-programs-with-xfinity-email 

You have to enable 3rd party mail client access from web mail first:

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/third-party-email-access 

Then, make a backup with Mac's TimeMachine.  Do it regularly and you won't lose your mail.

(edited)

Gold Problem Solver

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26K Messages

11 months ago

... The simple way?  Add your email account to the Mac mail program, but ... use the POP server ...

Agree, but also be sure to turn off "delete messages from server" (or enable "leave messages on server") in the Mail program. Also, on https://connect.xfinity.com/, set "(gear icon) / Email Settings / Mail / Advanced Settings / POP Settings for Other Apps" to "Keep" to prevent POP from removing messages from the Inbox when you fetch them.

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(edited)

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

@BruceW​  Good call.  I don't know what the default settings are for POP account on a Mac are as of late.  Gave up on Mac mail when GNU-GPG went non-free.    

2 Messages

11 months ago

I’m not completely computer savvy but think I follow you here! Thing is I want to download an entire batch of emails from the past 5 years that I can save for example to an external back up drive. Is that possible?

Problem Solver

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1.5K Messages

@user_zo4p3x​  Once you have the content you want, either from an IMAP or POP server, you can export a mailbox with mac mail if you want:

  https://support.apple.com/guide/mail/import-or-export-mailboxes-mlhlp1030/mac 

Then you can put the .mbox file it creates anywhere you wish. 

To read the .mbox file, you'd have to import it to a mail program, or use an mbox viewer application.  There are free open source projects on github and sourceforge.  There are also non-free mbox viewer applications.  A search engine is your friend here. 

Official Employee

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1.1K Messages

@user_zo4p3x It's possible to export your emails or save them using a flash drive. Are you exporting emails from Xfinity, Gmail or mac mail? 

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1 Message

xfinity and please make it as simple as possible because I'm 73 years old and not tech savy

Visitor

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1 Message

I have done this in the past several times - saved emails by year as zipped files then deleted them from Xfinity.

However I cannot do it today.  The zipped folder appears but is invalid; I get a message to insert the last disk used.  That makes no sense. 

Any suggestions?  What changed?  I tried this several times using different flash drives and copying the folder to my desktop.  Does not work.  Help!

Official Employee

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1.6K Messages

 

Consumer2 Are you still having trouble getting emails into a zip folder and then saved to a flash drive at this time?

 

I am an Official Xfinity Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Xfinity: CARE, Product, Leadership.
We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Please, mark a reply as the Accepted Answer.tick
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