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How to Backup Apple Mail Emails to External Hard Drive?

  author
Jamie Kaler   Contribution
Rollins Duke
Rollins Duke  Approved By
Published On June 8th, 2026 • 6 min read

Here are the different expert techniques to backup Apple Mail to External hard drive. With this guide, you will be able to back up multiple emails from Apple Mail to any hard drive with ease. 

Apple Mail itself does not have a fixed storage space; it usually depends on the storage space in the Mac and the email provider’s storage quota. However, for some users, there might be a need to extract the data to the internal or external hard drive. Thus, let’s see with what procedure one can back up all Apple Mail folders to an External Hard drive 

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Need to Backup Apple Mail to External Hard Drive

Downloading emails is one of the main tasks in the tech sector. We will discuss some of the significant needs for backing up email data. Maintaining an external device for confidential data is always a great option in the same situation.

  • Easy Process: Backing up Apple Mail emails can also be an easy process when compared to data recovery. Instead of being in need of data recovery later, saving email data of your Apple Mail beforehand can be really useful.
  • Best Solution in case of data loss: When it comes to data recovery from unexpected scenarios, the task can really be time-consuming and frustrating. Regularly backing up your Apple Mail emails can be considered the best possible defence against the said risk.
  • Lack of space: Apple Mail generally offers a limited storage space, which often requires either deleting your Apple Mail emails or finding alternatives to store them somewhere. Hence, the best option is to backup your Apple Mail emails on an external hard drive, which can be ideal.
  • Best solution for updating Mac OS: Each Mac OS update, like Sonoma, Sequoia or any upcoming one, can always be risky and lead to problems such as mail disappearance, loss of data from the mailbox, failure to sync and much more in Apple Mail. Hence, before the installation of the Mac OS update, it is easy to take a backup.

Learn the steps from the article: How to Transfer Mac Mailboxes to Office 365?

Manually Save Mac Mail Emails to Hard Drive

Email migration always has a manual or standard practice. Therefore, we will discuss the manual technique and then proceed with the alternate one.

  1. Start the Apple Mail account on the system.
  2. From the menu option, click on Mailbox.
  3. Then click on the Export Mailbox… from the drop-down.
    select mailbox
  4. Finally, choose the location to store the required mailboxes – *.mbox files.export to backup apple mail to external hard drive
  5. Click the Continue button.

Limitations: The manual method is limited if the requirement is for batch backup. To get unlimited email files from Mail, the user has to perform the same steps repeatedly. Read the next section to get the bulk Apple Mail backup procedure.

Backup Apple Mail to External Hard Drive – Alternate Technique

Download the software Email Backup for Mac or Windows. The toolkit is specified for taking email data backup to any file format. With the application, choose any of the file formats or back up straight to another online email client. In either case, the results will be the same. It works on all new versions of macOS above 10.10 Yosemite. 

How to Export Mac Mail to External Hard Drive? 

  1. Start the tool and choose iCloud from the Email source. 
  2. Enter your Email Address and password and press the Login button. Enter the Mail Account to backup Apple Mail to external hard drive
  3. Select the desired folder. Then, choose a format to backup Mac Mail. Connect any external hard drive to the system, and select the particular folder.Choose any format
  4. Further, for Selective conversion, press the Filter option.Selective backup Mac Mail
  5. As the final step, press the Start Backup button to initiate the backup.

Best Way to Backup Apple Mail to External Hard Drive

The manual methods are viable options when it comes to saving important files to external hard drives. However, using the software mentioned above brings a lot of features, as pointed out here:

  • User-friendly interface: The software has a user-friendly interface through which navigation is easy and uncomplicated, even for those who are not too technically skilled.
  • Selective Backup: This enables you to select which folders, emails or attachments you want to back up. With this option, backup all Apple Mail folders to external drive.
  • Multiple File Formats: One can save the offered backup in various file formats, including PST, MSG, EML, and PDF.
  • Filtering Options: You will be able to filter your backups by sender or recipient, date, subject, or even keywords so that you may have control over what data you want to be included.

These are a few of the traits of the software that stand out and give a better experience with the backup procedure. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1) Will I be able to save all types of data from the account?

A1) Yes. Select the required file or folder from the software and proceed with the backup. 

Q2) I have a bunch of Apple Mail MBOX files that I need to convert to PDF. Is there any method to save those files to the external hard drive in a document format?

A2) Yes. Either get the MBOX File Converter if you have the mailboxes stored locally. Otherwise, get the Apple Mail Converter, which fetches the mailbox files from the default folder. 

Q3) How to export the Apple Mail Contacts locally to a hard drive?

A3) Select the contact folder and choose the CSV file format to store the contact list in *.csv (the best file format for the contact list). 

For more details, visit: Export Apple Mail Contacts to CSV

Conclusion

Backup Apple Mail on external drive with or without attachments: As already said the steps explained below are so easy for a tech or non-tech person to do it so install the demo version of the software and perform this procedure easily by saving 25 Emails from the Mac Mail Account. The entire operation is performed inside the software with no other application.