Archiving Webmail Messages

In many situations it is useful to store your old email messages for future use. In some work settings, the law requires that they be archived. This page tells you how.

NOTE: Before you actually archive all of your email, you might want to do a test run of the archiving and retrieval processes. If so, create a test folder containing some dummy messages (including some with attachments). Then use the instructions on this page to archive those messages and subsequently retrieve them.

Setting your archive preferences

From the links at the top of a Webmail window, choose "Options."

1. In the right-hand column, choose "Archive Settings."
2. Accept the defaults or make any desired changes in these settings:
   • Email format
     NOTE: It may be preferable to create more than one archive file for your email, each in a different format. You might not know what format would be best suited for the program you eventually use to retrieve your archived messages.
   • Save attachments or not
   • Type of compression
   • Format of the file name for an individual email

Archiving your Webmail messages

1. Open a folder containing messages you want to archive. In Webmail, you can achive your messages only one folder at a time.
2. From the links in the upper part of the window, select "Show All." Messages can't be selected for archiving if they are on different pages. Choosing "Show All" turns off the pagination feature and allows all of them to appear on a single page.
3. Select the messages you want to archive. You can do this in either one of two ways:
   1. Choose the "Toggle All" link, which marks every message in the folder.
   2. Individually mark the checkbox at the left of each message you want to save.
4. In the bottom right corner of the page, select the "Archive" button. Webmail will save the selected messages as a .zip file. Each message will be saved with a .eml extension and can be opened later with a number of email programs.
5. Store this .zip file on your hard drive or copy it onto a CD or a removable medium; e.g., flash drive.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each of your Webmail folders that you want to archive.

Retrieving your archived Webmail messages

If you are using a Windows machine, it probably already has a utility to unzip the archive file. If you are using a Macintosh, check the Internet for available utilities; e.g., MacZip. If you need additional assistance with retrieving your archived email, contact the Help Desk.

Go to Webmail Tutorial main page

Last modified on August 17, 2006 by cawalker