Saving Emails

[#1]

I want to try and reduce the size of my Webmail folders.

So, is there any way of saving/copying complete Webmail messages into document files?

Boz

[#2]

You could export email as text in webmail but I would think using an email client would be better (on a computer). With the client you can setup local only folders (i.e. stored on computer) and you can either copy or move email from the server to local.

[#3]

Hi RPM

Many thanks for the reply.  Not sure what it all meant, but I'm grateful nonetheless.

I guess I was hoping for some sort of Webmail Email Downloader Tool that could grab a whole Webmail folder and download the contents to a folder on my laptop in the form of text files.  I'm not sure how the GTI did it, but they must have downloaded thousands and thousands of emails to their evidence files from many different computers.  I can't believe that they would have highlighted and copied every single email.

Boz

[#4]

The Thunderbird email client will save messages as emails files ( which are text files )

Export email

You'll export messages from your Inbox and Outbox as individual .eml files. For example, if you have 10 messages, they'll save as 10 .eml files. Create folders on your computer (like in your Downloads) to keep track of the .eml files that belong in your Inbox and the .eml files that belong in your Outbox.

1. Open Thunderbird.
2. Select the Inbox folder containing the messages you want to export.
3. Select all the messages you want to save. Use Ctrl+A for Windows or Cmd+A for macOS.
4. Select and hold (or right-click) and choose Save selected messages, and then EML format.
5. Select the folder on your computer where the message will be saved.
6. Select Open. Your messages save as .eml files in the folder, which depending on the number of files, can take a few minutes.

Repeat for your Outbox and any other files to save and export their messages

You will of course need to install Thunderbird and configure itbto access your mail account using IMAP

[#5]

Assuming you don't want to set up a POP or IMAP email client on your PC, individual messages in a Plusnet Email folder can be downloaded as 'Source (.eml)' format files. Selecting multiple messages (or 'All') in a mailbox folder allows the messages to be downloaded as either 'Mbox format (.zip)' or 'Maildir format (.zip)'.

What you then do with these is another matter. (I may need to do much the same thing at some point.)

Hope this helps!

[#6]

Many people will mistakenly advise using POP3 to “address” this need … however POP3 only accessed the inbox. Sent items and other folders on an IMAP server are not accessed. You need to establish periodic housekeeping practices for yourself.

[#7]

Many thanks for all the replies and suggestions.  I'm unlikely to use an email client, although I did experience Microsoft Outlook many years ago.  When using the word “Webmail” in this forum, I have, of course, meant Plusnet’s Webmail, although I realise now that there are other Webmails!

@pvmb – Thank you for your reply.  I’ve downloaded one email (opening the email and using the “download” option), and as you say it has created an eml file; but I can’t see how to download a whole folder.  I’ve opened the eml file using a document app but, although it shows the text, it doesn’t include the email header.  Do I need to download the email in a different way?

Boz

[#8]

Indeed many people use “webmail” incorrectly. That term is only appropriate when using the browser based email interface (client) provided by Plusnet.

The only proficient way of getting emails outside of webmail is to use some other email client in a PC, phone or tablet. Outlook is but one such client, there are others, many are free. Thunderbird is popular (but far from being my favourite!!).

There are other alternatives such as using Gmail or outlook.com to harvest your Plusnet emails. Not a strategy I would recommend but one which works for some. Thought either gives you another email address … you do not need to use it

I use an Outlook.com email address for the sole purpose of managing calendar & contacts across different devices - laptop, phone and tablet. Its vast storage is also a useful location for archiving Plusnet emails … that being done via drag & drop from the Plusnet mailbox to a finder using a laptop based client … something you infer you do not want to do.

[#9]

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@Boz wrote:

@pvmb – Thank you for your reply.  I’ve downloaded one email (opening the email and using the “download” option), and as you say it has created an eml file; but I can’t see how to download a whole folder.  I’ve opened the eml file using a document app but, although it shows the text, it doesn’t include the email header.  Do I need to download the email in a different way?

---

A single message can be downloaded as an .eml file. I understand these are intended to be used by MS Outlook or Apple Mail. Opening one with Notepad shown them as just text files and I can see the email heading OK with one of mine:

Received: from 31-125-76-2.plus.com ([31.125.76.2])
by webmail.plus.net
with HTTP (HTTP/1.1 POST); Tue, 17 Jan 2023 17:52:04 +0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2023 17:52:04 +0000
From: XXXXXX
To: XXXXXX
Subject: XXXXX

If you select more than one message in a mailbox (or select 'All') the Download choices are MBOX or MAILDIR format, both as .ZIP files. The MBOX format produces one file containing all the messages stored serially. Various application can open such a file as a mailbox, including Mozilla Thunderbird: https://fileinfo.com/extension/mbox

The MAILDIR format keeps all the messages separate, as .eml files in one folder. This format seems more used by Unix mail readers.

In both cases all the files can be opened by Notepad and read as text files.

[#10]

Thanks once again for the replies.

@pvmb - I've opened the eml file with Notepad, and the following is part of what I can see:-

X-CNFS-Analysis: v=2.4 cv=BbDLb5h2 c=1 sm=1 tr=0 ts=63f9de0c cx=a_idp_d
a=sMBHEcjooVZsi7KJVlPxog==:117 a=sMBHEcjooVZsi7KJVlPxog==:17
a=S9puSP_Sv1pSvJ3R:21 a=m04uMKEZRckA:10 a=BYY9KFpMAAAA:8

So I'm clearly not following the same procedure.  How are you downloading your eml file?

Boz

[#11]

@Boz
What you quoted is part of the full email header. So I think you do have all of the email.
The only problem you may see is when the email is html only formatted, it will look like a jumble of words and characters when viewed in a text editor.