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m021478

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 23, 2007
378
5
How do I go about backing up my Hotmail account offline using Apple's Mail.app? I know I can just add the account and it will immediately begin downloading everything, but my concern is that doing this will cause Mail.app to remove all of the emails from Hotmail's servers because it uses POP3 (AND THIS IS SOMETHING I MUST AVOID ACCIDENTALLY DOING!).

I know I can uncheck the checkbox that says "remove the copy off the server after it's been downloaded", but from what I can tell as soon as I enter in my Name, Email, and Password, Mail.app immediately begins downloading (and thereby removing) the emails from the server and it doesn't even really give you a chance to uncheck that checkbox...

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!
 

GamaFu

macrumors regular
Apr 12, 2007
191
0
I'd try disconnect from internet before setting up the account. Make sure "remove the copy off the server after it's been downloaded" is unchecked and then you can backup your mails now. I really hope all Mail clients can have that option unchecked by default. Windows Live Mail doesn't remove mails from server by default, but Thunderbird and Mail both do it, so if not careful, your mails are all gone from the server.
 

Nikola K.

macrumors newbie
Dec 5, 2012
1
0
Belgrade, Serbia
If anybody's still wondering..
Hotmail has it's POP folder, where all your messages move after dey have been downloaded to an offline mail software.

If that's the case, here's what I've done:
- select all your messages from the POP folder
- mark them as unread
- move them all to inbox

...and that's it, your emails are being downloaded to your Mail app. One thing to have in mind is that it's important that you follow the steps, FIRST mark as unread, THEN move to inbox.

Now, since there might be some duplicates, there is a workaround with MailScripts (read about it here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3513171?start=0&tstart=0 (download ling included))

If you want your mails to be downloaded to a certain folder in Mail app, you can accomplish that by adding a certain rule to your Mail app.
 
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