How to Backup an Earthlink Mailbox

Email is a form of electronic communication that is used by people around the world. Sending and receiving email is easy, and you may depend on email to keep in touch with your friends, family and business associates. Like other computer documents, there is a risk of emails being erased or lost. Making a backup of your Earthlink email box is not difficult. The email service built into Earthlink allows you to export your emails to a compressed file that is easily stored on a flash drive or other backup device.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Flash drive or other external storage device

1. Open your Earthlink MailBox by clicking "Start," "All Programs" if using a Windows operating system or clicking on the "Earthlink MailBox" icon on the desktop of your Mac system.

2. Click "File."

3. Click "Export."

4. Click "Messages."

5. Click the button by "EarthLink MailBox DAT file" to back up your Earthlink MailBox folders and emails.

6. Click "Browse" and navigate to the drive where you want to store your Earthlink emails---a flash drive or a removable hard drive. The file will save as "backup.dat."

7. Click "Next."

8. Click each check box by the different folders of your Earthlink MailBox to back up the entire email box.

9. Click "Next."

10. Click "OK" to start the backup process.
    
    A message will appear once the backup process is complete:
    "Your messages have been exported.
    Location: x:\backup.dat"
    
    "x" is the drive letter of the storage device you used.

Tips & Warnings

• Back up your Earthlink MailBox monthly to a removable flash drive or other external storage device.

References

• Exporting Email Messages from EarthLink MailBox

Resources

• Earthlink Software & Tools