How to Convert IMAP Emails to PDF? Best Proven Methods

  

Rollins Duke   
Published: July 24th, 2026 • 7 Min Read

Summary: How often do you work with IMAP server? Do you just read IMAP email documents or do you need to save them into a portable format for archiving, saving, printing, or securing the emails? If you are finding a solution for any of these, then this article will be useful for you. This write-up explains a precise and direct solution to convert IMAP to PDF file format. Know the reasons, and solutions to export IMAP server to a portable document format.

Reasons to Convert IMAP Emails to PDF Format

Today, email communication has become a part of our routine life whether it’s personal or for business purposes. So, it becomes really important to store all those significant email messages stored on servers on your local machines- computer, android device, laptops, etc.

In order to access your email messages locally, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is one of the best methods. It facilitates managing online emails locally or into a local email client. In IMAP Server, all your messages and inboxes are stored somewhere in the cloud. This permits each one of your emails to be flawlessly synchronized while viewing emails from various PCs or gadgets, or even from Webmail, as all devices will show precisely the same messages, mailboxes, etc.

But an inconvenience of the IMAP server is that it is compulsory to have an internet connection in order to read, answer or search the messages. Moreover, as the emails are stored on the server, continue to check the accessible storage space for your emails, else if the mailbox is full, emails will begin skipping back.

You can avoid this situation by exporting emails from IMAP server to PDF which is a universal file format. PDF or Portable Documents Format is an ideal method for those situations when you need to save IMAP emails locally. In this way, you can also access all important or required IMAP account emails on the local hard drive. Even you can print them as and when needed.

How to Convert IMAP Emails to PDF Format Manually?

(1) Basic “Print to PDF” Method – (Single Email)

• Log in to your IMAP account using Webmail or Desktop e-mail client application like Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail.
• Search the email that you wish to print.
• Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac), or click on the print button on the email.
• Change the destination printer to Save as PDF or Microsoft Print to PDF.
• Finally, click on the Save button and specify the destination folder and file name.

(2) Batch Export Method – Apple Mail

• On your keyboard, press the Command key, then click on all the IMAP emails that you wish to download.
• At the top of your screen, click on the File option, select the Export as PDF option from the drop-down menu.
• Select the folder where you want to save all your selected emails and click on the Choose icon to download all at once.

(3) Download as EML and Print – (via Browser)

• Drag and drop the email from your email client application to your computer’s desktop (the format will be .eml).
• Right-click on the .eml file and select Open With > Google Chrome or Edge or Safari).
• Press Ctrl + P in the browser window, and select Save as PDF as the destination.

Note: In Microsoft Outlook (Desktop App) dragging an email saves it as .eml file. You must go to File > Save As and change the format to .eml first.

Disadvantages of Manual Methods

• Transforming large amounts of emails is laborious because native print-to-PDF functions usually deal with single emails or just few at the same time.
• With regard to the print-to-PDF process, the email that you will get will contain only text and images, and you won’t be able to view any files that have been sent in a different email format such as ZIP, DOCX, or PDF files.
• It is quite possible (during the e-mail conversion process) that complicated HTML layouts, images, and other necessary data like full header information may not be represented accurately or even lost in the process.

Best Professional Tool to Convert IMAP Emails to PDF: BitRecover

For easy conversion of IMAP emails to PDF format, we recommend you to use BitRecover IMAP Mail Backup Tool. With this software, you can swiftly export IMAP server to PDF with all email attributes.

Download tool to convert IMAP to PDF on your Windows or Mac machine:

Steps to Convert IMAP Emails to PDF Documents (With Screenshots)

Firstly, download the setup of software and install it on your Windows or Mac machine.

Now, please fill in the IMAP account login details like email address, password, hostname, port no. Once done, click on the login button.

Then, select all or necessary mailboxes of the IMAP server account.

Next, select PDF as the file saving option from the toolkit.

Choose or browse any destination location for output. Along with this you can also select the various filter options for converting desired IMAP emails to PDF.

Lastly, tap on the backup tab and that’s it! Soon the conversion of IMAP to PDF starts. After the whole process ends, you will get a conversion completed message.

Premium Benefits of the Tool

Bulk export IMAP to PDF: This software permits execution batch conversion of IMAP server into PDF. With it, you can bulk save IMAP as PDF with all email components. Also, the separate batch mode feature enables to migration of multiple IMAP server emails to PDF.

Maintains Email Attributes: During the process to print IMAP to PDF, the tool keeps intact all email properties such as text formatting, images, hyperlinks, attachments, email headers, etc.

Data Filter options: It also offers some data filter options which are helpful to selectively convert IMAP to PDF. These filters allow to download IMAP server emails to PDF as per date range, subject, email address, etc.

Final Word

One thing is certain by saving IMAP emails as PDF, you can easily turn your digital documents stored on IMAP account into a portable format. This will also help you to print IMAP mailboxes into PDF documents. Through this blog post, we explained how to convert IMAP to PDF in the easiest manner.

Commonly Asked Questions

Q: Is it possible to save the original attachments when converting IMAP emails to PDF?

A: Well, modern conversion type tools like BitRecover will let you achieve this as they are designed to make sure that no files get lost while changing the format from IMAP to PDF.

Q: Is there a way of converting entire email folders from IMAP to PDF in one go?

A: You can resort to using sophisticated email apps or download many IMAP message converter programs that allow conversion of the whole folder in just a few clicks.

Q: Will converting email messages from IMAP to PDF affect their general structure?

A: There are many possible scenarios while using such conversion apps, but usually, they do not interfere with the structure of the message since one can preserve the original HTML documents.