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How to Export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive? – Free Way

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Written By Kristian Wilson
Marco Devin
Approved By Marco Devin  
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Published On November 14th, 2022

Export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive: Whether it is the fear of accidentally deleting your important emails or you practice good cybersecurity hygiene. Be it for any reason, regularly backing up your emails is indeed a beneficial habit to adopt.

In addition to that, there are various other reasons which result in users looking for options to back up their emails. Such as, if you have to share something with anyone. You can only forward so many individual emails. You need a solution to help you export your emails in bulk.

Thus, we have discussed five methods to export Outlook Emails to Hard drives; you can use whichever is in accordance with your situation.

For many businesses, Microsoft Outlook has been the preferred choice as their email client. It not only manages your emails but, you can also manage your task, calendar, and contacts- all in one place. However, users have faced frequent

If you are an Outlook user and looking for ways to back up your emails; keep reading. In this article, we have covered five different ways to export Outlook emails to a hard drive.

There are five methods you can use to download your emails.

  • Drag and Drop Outlook Emails
  • Export Outlook emails to Hard drive as pst
  • Save as PDF
  • Download as a Doc file
  • Manually Copy Outlook PST Files to Hard Drive

Let’s elaborate on these five methods.

Method 1: Drag and Drop Method to Save Outlook Emails Locally

Yes, you read that right. This method is exactly what the name suggests. You simply drag the email from your Outlook message inbox and drop it to either the hard drive folder or desktop.

It is a simple method that any user can easily execute. With this method, the email files are saved in MSG format.

MSG file format is individual email messages stored outside of Outlook. It contains the text of the email message, a task created, a calendar, a contact, or any appointment made.

You can view MSG files without having Outlook installed on your computer. MSG files can be viewed with any MSG File Viewer.

This method, though simple, however, cannot be used if you wish to export your emails in bulk.

You can only export so many emails individually. If you want to export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive in bulk then, choose the following method.

drag and drop

Method 2: How to Export Outlook Emails in Hard Drive as PST

This method uses Outlook’s inbuilt option to import and export files. Another simple method for you to export your emails in bulk. With this, you can not only export your email messages but your contacts, calendars, and tasks as well.

Follow the instructions given below.

  1. Open Outlook on your computer.
  2. Click on File. This will open a file-related menu >> Select Open & Export. And choose Import/Export. This will open a dropdown menu of the import/export wizard.

    drag and drop

  3. In the appeared menu, select the Export To A File option and click Next.

    Export To A File

  4. Choose Outlook Data File (.pst) in the next set of options.

    Outlook Data File

  5. In the next section, browse and select the location to export your files.

    select the location

  6. Create the file name and click OK.

If you want to secure your emails, Outlook provides you with an option to create a password. You can skip this step if you want.

Method 3: Download Outlook Emails in PDF Format

We have another article, where you will get the complete information to convert Outlook Emails to PDF format in bulk. So, you can directly go and export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive in PDF format.

Method 4: Export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive as DOC File

Important Note: Your graphics and images in the PDF file will not be looks exactly like the PDF file.

First, save your Outlook emails in PDF format by following the mentioned article, and then follow the mentioned article.

  1. Open the location, where your PDF files are saved.
  2. Now right-click on it and choose “Open With” >> “Word” options from the list.
  3. Next, a warning pop-up will appear and click on the “OK” button.
  4. And Your PDF file successfully opens in Word.
  5. Now hit on the “File” >> “Save As” option.
  6. And select the location and hit the “Open” button to export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive.

Finally, your file was successfully created as Doc File on the selected location.

Method 5: Manually Copy Outlook PST Files to Hard Drive

As we are aware that when Outlook is configured with POP3, it saves all its data in PST by default. Thus, it is possible that you can directly copy and paste the PST files to your hard drive.

Follow the given instructions to carry forward with this method.

  1. Log in to your MS Outlook account.
  2. Click File >> Account Settings.
  3. Select Data Files to see the exact location of the PST files in your system.
  4. Select the PST file and click on Open File Location to Export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive.

From there, you just have to manually copy and paste that PST file to your hard drive. The copied file acts as a backup.

Let’s Wrap Up

Be it for any reason, backing up your emails is extremely important. Here, we discussed five free ways for you to export Outlook Emails to Hard Drive. Hopefully, these methods provide you with the help you need according to your situation.