Summary: Downloading Hotmail messages to your computer is easy - or it's not - depending on your account. I look at some ways to download Hotmail messages, including the one I actually use myself.
How do I move all my Hotmail folders to my computer or external hard drive? Do I have to do each file/email individually? Or is there a way to save them all quickly.
•
I'm a little reluctant to answer this question. Why? Because it'll continue to make me sound like a broken record:
This is yet another reason not to use or rely on Hotmail for anything important.
It is possible, but it's not officially supported, and things that do work don't work as completely as you might like.
•
First, if you have a paid Hotmail account, then I suggest you simply configure Outlook Express to download your email. I haven't done this in some time, so I'm not sure whether you'll get any folders other than the inbox. I believe Outlook Express uses a private webmail protocol that might well support folders. One way or another you'll see them or you won't in Outlook Express.
Make sure that you then copy all your Hotmail folders to the personal folders on your machine - simply dragging and dropping the folders or the messages should do.
Now, if like most folks you're using the free version of Hotmail, you're in a more difficult situation.
Outlook Express support for free accounts is being phased out. You can try it, but I wouldn't expect it to work. If it does work, consider yourself very lucky and follow the instructions above for paid accounts. And do it soon, because your ability to read Hotmail in Outlook Express is going away sooner or later.
If that doesn't work, there are third party tools that might let you download your Hotmail inbox into your regular POP3 email client. I'll be honest - I don't trust most of them. Some claim to be free and are not. And in almost all cases, you need to provide your Hotmail user ID and password to a third party. That makes me really uncomfortable and sounds like a great scam for stealing your account.
But if they work, they are a solution. You can use them to download your inbox into your local machine's email program.
I stumbled onto a similar solution while researching this article that I feel better about. If you run Thunderbird as your email client, there's a webmail extension that allows you to download and send email through your webmail accounts, including Hotmail. It appears to be a fine solution. I trust it more than the previously noted similar solutions because it's coming from a source I trust: mozdev.org. Not that everything there is somehow beyond reproach, but it is public and open to peer and consumer scrutiny and gives me a slightly higher level of confidence that it's at least not some kind of scam.
Regardless of your approach, an important thing to remember is that if you've spent a lot of effort organizing folders and contacts in Hotmail, you may still be seriously out of luck. Many of the solutions here don't address the contact list at all and similarly handle only the inbox. You may be able to download messages by moving them back into your inbox on Hotmail and then downloading, but that's obviously less than ideal.
And finally - I really, really hope you're investigating this as a step on the road to moving your important email away from Hotmail. Or you're at least setting up a backup strategy that you'll adhere to religiously.
If you heard the repeated stories of delivery problems, disappearing folder and contacts, lost accounts and other problems, you'd understand why I sound like a broken record.
Related:
-
Ask Leo! - Are free email services worth it?
-
Ask Leo! - Can I use Outlook Express or Outlook to access my Hotmail account?
Article C2855 - November 27, 2006
Leo, Hotmail will no longer honor Outlook Express to view my e-mails. I have to many folders and if I keep it on my account, I've used up all my storage. HELP! I need to store all my folders to my computer and I'm lost. I'm not computer literate so any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. They close down June 30th. Otherwise I only know to do each e-mail separately.
Posted by: Caryl at May 26, 2008 7:13 PM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
This was actually answered by the article you're commenting
on, as well as several others on the site, including this
one:
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_download_my_windows_live_hotmail_to_my_machine.html
Short answer: Outlook Express will no longer work. You'll
need to upgrade it to something else, or as I've recommended
for years: stop using Hotmail for this kind of thing.
Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFIPEBOCMEe9B/8oqERAptdAJ9YHlDzrxIHGaZYXTYIQmZHcq9bGQCdHAjA
Posted by: Leo at May 27, 2008 10:12 AMv6CoiMr+xytQ2fiV/T6YEBM=
=7w4l
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
thanks for the help. we need more places like this with simple straight answers
Posted by: steve at June 2, 2008 10:51 PMwhy wont my computer let me download hotmail
Posted by: kelly olson at June 3, 2008 11:14 PMI am downloading emails from a free Hotmail account using Nuance PDF Converter Professional (about $60). I have to do it one at a time. (I’m using Internet Explorer). I click on the email I am viewing to bring up the menu, then select ‘Print’. Then I select ‘DocuCom’ as the printer. The next menu allows a file name and whether to create a new PDF or append to an existing one. The web page on the screen at the time you select ‘Print’ is what you get – as a snapshot. Animated GIF’s for instance are not animated after downloading. URL’s can remain active in the PDF document (it’s an option in the Converter). It’s not a ‘folder-at-one-go’, but the end result is worth the clicking.
Posted by: Richard at August 31, 2008 7:55 AMhi,
Posted by: niamh at November 6, 2008 3:19 PMi appeared to get a virus from bebo during the week which i have sorted out wtih avast. however my hotmail wont' open at all on my computer at home now the page keeps tyring to download before timeing out...any help?? it wroks fine in work...
I noticed that you can print a whole page of hotmail e-mails in one pdf file by checking the box near the top of the page and then clicking on the printer icon at the top. That served my purpose for saving messages to my computer.
Clark
Posted by: clark at December 28, 2008 10:38 AMYou can download your hotmail emails to your PC via windows live mail program...it works well, but that saves them on my PC, I didn't find the folder where those emails are kept, but atleast it's a step ahead :)
Posted by: M!R0 at December 30, 2008 1:57 AMFor those that don't use Outlook and want to move their Hotmail emails to their own computer, there is one option that you can use which works with entire folders or individual emails. It's a work around of sorts but here's how....
To Save Entire Folders:
Posted by: Nano7 at November 17, 2009 11:54 AMOpen the folder you'd like to save and click the little square box at the top left of email window (same box you'd check to indicate all the files for deleting). Once all the emails have a check next to them, click the little printer icon that appears just above where you click Reply (this icon appears to the right of your New | Delete | Mark As | Move to) and it will open a box which will contain all the emails contents in a long list, as well as the printer options window, which opens on top of that box. Close the printer options window, highlight the box content and save it as a Notepad file to a new folder on your computer.
To Save Individual Emails:
Posted by: Nano7 at November 17, 2009 11:57 AMGo to the folder with the email you wish to save to your computer, check the box next to it and click the small printer icon to the far right of New | Delete | Mark As | Move to. This will open a box with the open contents of the email, as well as opening the printer options window over it. Close the printer options window and highlight the contents of the email and save it with Notepad to the file of your choice on your computer.