How to Backup Outlook Emails to Hard Drive with Attachments?

  

Rollins Duke   
Published: September 19th, 2025 • 8 Min Read

Are you also struggling with “how to back up Outlook emails to the hard drive”? It can be a little bit confusing to get to know where users should start, especially when users are dealing with a bulk of emails and attachments. By backing up data, you can keep your data safe, and it can be easily accessible.

As you can see in the picture, many users are searching for a reliable solution to back up Outlook emails. However, most answers do not provide a proper method. That’s why we decided to write this post to share tried and tested approaches that anyone can follow easily, ensuring there is no risk of data loss.

Reasons to Move Outlook Emails to Hard Drive

1. Data Backup: Users’ Outlook data can get lost due to Various system problems, hardware. The user can export their emails to an external hard drive as a backup to keep the data safe.
2. Managing Performance: As time passes by, a huge amount of emails fills users’ mailboxes, exceeding the storage limit set by the email client, along with slowing down the systems and the provider’s performance. To keep the mailbox size smaller within the storage limit and for easy accessibility, users back up Outlook emails to the hard drive.
3. Professional Compliance: Professionals, like a lawyer or a forensic investigator, use hard drives to store important email data, whereas industries keep a record of emails to meet legal rules.
4. Offline Accessibility: Another reason why users export Outlook emails to the hard drive is that storing data locally secures easy accessibility around the clock without users needing any internet connection.

Save Outlook Emails to Hard Drive Manually?

We will explore some of the tried-and-tested methods to download all Outlook emails with attachments to hard drive in PST, MSG, and PDF file formats. Some of these methods influence the email client’s in-built functions to move Outlook emails to hard drive. While the traditional techniques are perfectly suitable for a few emails that need to be stored in the local drive, it can prove to be gruesome to backup emails in large volume. If the user wishes to save their data in standard and accessible file formats, then they can easily save Outlook emails as PDFs in Outlook. On the other hand, if users are going to utilize Outlook email client for a long time, then they can save Outlook emails as MSG and PST formats that are only accessible with Outlook. Below are three different methods for solving this problem.

Method 1: Download All Outlook Emails with Attachments to Hard Drive

1. Open Outlook and click on the “File” tab.
2. Then,under export click on Import/ Export.
   
3. Now select “Export to a file” and click Next.
   
4. Next, choose “Outlook Data File (.PST) ” option.
   
5. Select the required Outlook folders that you want to save.
   
6. Choose the desired location by clicking on “Browse”.
   
7. Press “Finish” to save emails from Outlook to hard drive.

Method 2:Save Outlook Emails to Hard Drive

For Individual Message

1. Install and launch Outlook, and then open the email message.
2. Then, click on files and under that click on “Save As” option.
   
3. Now, set your hard drive as the destination path.
4. Select “Save as type: Outlook Message Format – Unicode”.
   
5. Click Save to download Outlook email with attachments.
   

For Multiple Messages

1. Open your Outlook and choose a folder.
2. Press Ctrl + A to select all emails within a folder.
   
3. Drag the selected emails and drop them on a hard drive.
   
4. Outlook emails with attachments downloaded in MSGs.

Method 3:Export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive

1. Start Outlook and open a specific email.
2. Next, select File and then choose Print.
   
3. Then, select Microsoft Print to PDF as the Printer.
4. Tap “Print” and choose the local drive as the “destination path”.
   
5. Click Save to export Outlook emails to hard drive.

Disadvantages of Manual Methods

Manual methods are capable of helping users save their Outlook emails to the hard drive, but they have a few drawbacks that can make this process more difficult and inefficient.

• It is a time-consuming process as they manually save or export a bulk of emails, and it takes a lot of time, especially when the user is dealing with a large number of emails.
• There is a high chance of risk; the user can accidentally lose their emails or attachments during this process.
• This method usually provides a limited format of files, such as PST or MSG; they do not support formats like PDF.
• They do not provide automation, so there is a need to repeat the process again and again when they want to back up new emails.
• This is a slow process for exporting; it can also freeze or crash if large size of mailboxes are present.

How Is Software Better Than Manual Approaches?

1. This software helps in converting PST files to the other 39 most popular formats and email clients directly.
2. It allows PST file conversion with email, contact, attachment, calendar, and journal, etc.
3. It offers users more than 10 unique file naming options to arrange converted emails and documents.
4. Allow users to batch convert PST files at once.
5. It automatically adds Outlook PST files in software GUI from default location.

Conclusion

The requirement to save Outlook emails to hard drive with attachments has become a need of the hour. Not only can users appropriately manage their emails, but have a backup strategy during times of corruption issues. In this informative guide, we have explained the best possible methods (both for Windows and Mac OS) to archive Outlook emails to a hard drive with attachments. In terms of user productivity and email security, this tool is relatively easy to use.