Are you planning to quit your job and want to make sure you get copies of all your emails in case you need to refer to them later? Or maybe you just want to export them for backup in case your Outlook PST file gets corrupted, which happens quite often.
Either way, backing up your email is always a good idea. Even if you’re using a web service like Outlook.com or Gmail, it’s still a good idea to use a desktop client like Outlook to download all of your mail so you store it locally. Web services and giants like Microsoft and Google may seem immune to crashes, but you never know when something catastrophic might happen.
In this article, I will show you how to export Outlook email to Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016. I will also mention the procedure if you are using Outlook for Mac. It’s worth noting that the actual import and export wizard is almost the same in all versions, but the process for accessing the wizard has changed.
Export emails from Outlook
If you are using Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, or 2013, check out my post on How to Export Outlook Contacts to see the procedure to navigate to the Import / Export Wizard. If you are using Outlook 2016, click File and Open & Export.
In the right-hand menu, click the Import / Export button.
– /
The Import / Export Wizard will now open, which looks the same across all versions of Office. First select “Export to file”.
On the next screen, you need to select the file type: CSV (Comma Separated Values) file or Outlook Data File (PST). I usually always use PST to make it easier to import back into Outlook, but you can choose CSV if you want to import emails into another email client, or even a program like Excel or Word.
On the next screen, you need to choose what you want to export. If you want to receive all of your emails, you usually select the Inbox folder and make sure the Include subfolders box is checked. If you only need a small set of emails, you can click the Filter button and then specify various criteria to reduce the number of emails to export.
Click Next and now you will need to choose a location to save the CSV or PST file. There are several options from which you can choose how duplicates will be handled.
Finally, click Finish and you will see a window asking if you would like to protect your PST file with an optional password. If you are going to use a password here, please note that it must be more than 16 characters long. Also note that this is not very secure and can be easily hacked with suitable software.
That’s all. You should now have a CSV or PST file that stores all of your emails. Now you can copy this file to a safe backup location.
Export emails from Outlook for Mac
If you’re using the Mac version of Office, the procedure for exporting emails is different. Actually, the file type is also different. On Mac computers, you only have one option: the Outlook for Mac Archive File (.OLM).
Click “File” and then “Export”.
A dialog box will appear where you can choose which items you want to export to the archive file. You can choose from mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes or you can choose from items in a specific category.
Click “Continue” and you will be asked where you want to save the file. That’s all. There are no other options when exporting from Outlook on Mac.
After exporting emails, you can read my post on how to import them into another email service like Gmail if you plan on switching to it.
–