How to Back Up Yahoo Mail

If you've never backed up your Yahoo email account before, you may be wondering where you should start. And you probably need the answers to the following questions:

"How do I backup my Yahoo mailbox?"

"Can I backup my Yahoo emails automatically?"

"Should I backup my Yahoo mail to the computer or to another email account?"

We will address all of those questions in this article. You will learn how you can create a secure backup of your Yahoo email account and make it usable.

Choosing the backup method for Yahoo mail

The first thing you should know is that Yahoo does not offer an export feature. This means that you cannot download your emails in bulk from Yahoo in a browser.

As a workaround, Yahoo suggests the following alternatives for backing up the emails:

• Print hard copies of the emails
• Forward your emails to another email address
• Copy and paste each email message into a text editor

Unfortunately, none of these options are realistic if you have quite a few emails in your account. To take a backup of the complete Yahoo account, you'll need to automate the process, at least to a certain extent.

You may consider downloading your email from Yahoo Mail into a third-party app, but this option has a number of disadvantages, including the following:

• If you choose to back up your Yahoo mail to a hard drive, your emails will be stored within your desktop email app. If you delete the app from your computer, your Yahoo email backup will be gone, too.
• Any damage to the hard drive or your system will put the safety of the email backup at risk.
• Your backup will not be available online and from your phone which will limit your ability to browse old emails and quickly find the messages that you need.

Considering all of the above, we recommend saving a backup of your Yahoo mail to another email account.

You can do that either automatically using third-party migration software (we recommend VaultMe) or manually. Below we'll explain why the automatic option is preferable.

Backing up Yahoo to another online account

Option 1: Copy your Yahoo emails into another account automatically using VaultMe

VaultMe can automagically copy your Yahoo emails into almost any email provider's mailbox. You may choose to back up Yahoo mail to Gmail, Outlook, AOL, or nearly any other email provider.

VaultMe is a fast and secure way to create a permanent backup of your Yahoo mail in another email account. The VaultMe app:

• Provides precise results (the formatting, the read/unread status, and all attachments are preserved)
• Saves the folder structure of your Yahoo email account, so your old messages will stay organized
• Works online (no software to download and you can power off your computer once your migration begins)
• Takes only a minute to set up
• Has great reviews!

Option 2: Copy your emails manually using a third-party desktop email app

There are things you should consider before you start copying your Yahoo mail using a desktop email app:

• The email app will use your hard drive storage. You should have enough free storage space for a temporary copy of your Yahoo email account on your computer.
• Depending on the number of emails and folders in your Yahoo account, the process may take several days.
• You will need to keep your computer turned on during the copying process.
• Some of the emails and/or folders may fail to copy, especially if power supply or broadband connection is interrupted.
• Moving Yahoo emails from one account into the other may slow down the work of your computer.

Conclusion

Having a backup of Yahoo emails is important, regardless of how large or small your account is. But to have real value, your backup should be usable.

The only way to make a Yahoo backup easily accessible is to save it to another email account. This can be done either automatically using VaultMe or manually using a third-party email app such as Thunderbird or Outlook.

We recommend the automatic option because it's quicker, easier, safer, and it provides accurate results. While you may be looking for a free Yahoo mail backup tool, "free" and "efficient" rarely go hand in hand.

To try VaultMe, you will only need to connect your two accounts to the secure online app and click "Start".