Top 3 Ways to Backup Hotmail Email to Hard Drive

Hotmail email backup overview

Around 30 years ago, Hotmail was one of the pioneering email services, allowing users to access their messages whenever they connected to the internet. Since its inception, Hotmail has gained widespread popularity and has been cherished by users worldwide.

However, users have faced challenges when it comes to Hotmail backup. For instance, preserving emails while changing smartphones or retaining important mail can be a perplexing process.

If you are a Hotmail user who values your data and wishes to keep it secure indefinitely, you may be seeking effective ways to back up your information. We are here to shed light on the importance of backing up data from Hotmail and introduce you to the best Hotmail backup tool to help you achieve your goal. With this tool, you can easily store all your emails on your PC or hard drive, ensuring the safety and accessibility of your valuable data.

Can I backup Hotmail emails to hard drive?

Hotmail has seen improvements in several areas since joining Microsoft. However, there is still room for further updates and enhancements to keep the platform up to date. One feature that users have been longing for is the ability to back up their Hotmail emails.

As of now, Hotmail does not provide a built-in tool for directly backing up emails to your computer. While Microsoft offers some tools for downloading data, accessing Outlook's features may take some time.

Despite the initial challenges, there are user-friendly exterior tools available that make the backup process quick and straightforward, allowing users to back up their emails in a matter of seconds. Alternatively, using Hotmail itself to back up messages is an option, but it may be more time-consuming.

Here are some of the best methods to back up messages on Hotmail, addressing the current lack of built-in backup tools on the email service platform. By utilizing these methods, users can ensure the safety and preservation of their Hotmail emails without relying solely on the native tools provided by the platform.

How to transfer Hotmail emails to external hard drive

As we mentioned above, Hotmail currently doesn’t have an official or built-in tool to backup Hotmail email to hard drive, we have found some ways including useful and reliable third-party software to save Hotmail email to your computer.

• Method 1. Using Hotmail backup tool----AOMEI Backupper
• Method 2. Manually copy and paste
• Method 3. Backup Hotmail via Export mailbox

Method 1. Using Hotmail backup tool----AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper is a professional backup and restore software that can provide you with powerful utilities. Its ease of use and user-friendly interface enables Windows users even those who have little Windows knowledge to execute data protection task easily. Apart from Hotmail, this software can support various emails like Gmail, Outlook Mail, Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, Zoho Mail, HushMail, GMMX Mail, etc.

▌Flexible backup destination: You can backup your Hotmail emails to hard drive (both internal and external), NAS, network location, cloud client, etc.
▌Automatic backup schedule: you can save a lot of efforts to backup your Hotmail easily via its scheduled automatic backup features, namely in daily/ weekly/ monthly/ event triggers and USB plug-in mode.
▌Intelligent backup mode: its incremental and differential backup mode can help you save a lot of time and store space by only copying the changes.

Now download this reliable email backup software on your PC and have a try. The Pro version is compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista. If you are a server user, you may consider using AOMEI Backupper Server.

Step 1. Please launch this software and choose Backup and then Email Backup.

Step 2. Then click Add Email Data.

Step 3. Then click Add Mailbox, then fill in your Hotmail email account and corresponding passwords. Then confirm by choosing OK.

Step 4. Select a destination to save your Hotmail email. To save Outlook emails to hard drive, you can choose  Select a local drive to store.

Step 5. Don’t forget to choose Start Backup to start the backup process.

Method 2. Manually copy and paste

Sometimes, you may consider only backup the important Hotmail emails for further usage. You can copy and back up your Hotmail emails manually and save them as plain text. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1. Open Microsoft Outlook and locate and open the email you want to save.

Step 2. Click the three-dot menu next to the Reply icon. And then click View > View message source.

Step 3. Select the text from the dialog box by pressing Ctrl/Command + A on your keyboard.

Step 4. Copy the content by pressing Ctrl/Command + C or right-clicking the text and selecting Copy.

Step 5. Open a text editor of your choice, such as Word, Docs, Notepad, etc.

Step 6. Paste the text using Ctrl/Command + V or right-click and select Paste.

Step 7. Click File > Save As button. 

Step 8. Then you need to choose a location to save this email backup. You can directly choose This PC, and then select a drive to store.

Method 3. Backup Hotmail via Export mailbox

One useful feature was introduced by Outlook email----Export mailbox can also help Windows users export their Hotmail emails to the PST file format. Let us see how it works:

Step 1. Sign in your Hotmail email account on Outlook web page.

step 2.  Now, select the View all Outlook settings option by clicking the Gear or Settings icon on the right.

Step 3. Click on the General option in the left panel. Then, navigate to Privacy and data > Export mailbox option under Export mailbox section.

Step 4. The export process will begin as soon as the user selects the Export mailbox option. According to the user interface, this export may take approximately four days to complete. 

Step 5. Following the export, users will be able to download the exported PST file from their Outlook.com Inbox folder.

Final words

Backup Hotmail email to hard drive is time-consuming, resorting to AOMEI Backupper, one of the best email backup software will be much more convenient. The benefits of using professional backup software are obvious including avoiding unnecessary mistakes and troubles and saving much laborious efforts at the same time.