There may be times where you need to save emails from Outlook. The best way to do this is to begin copying or moving messages from folders on the email server (remote folders) into local folders on your computer. Once messages are in your local folders, you then delete them from the server.
This procedure, called archiving, also reduces the amount of data stored in your account, making room for new messages to be delivered. You can also copy messages between accounts using Thunderbird.
How to back up your email in Thunderbird
- Create a local folder in Thunderbird:
- Select New from the File menu (three stacked lines icon).
- Select Folder...
- Under Name, type in a meaningful name.
- Under Create as a subfolder of, make sure it has Local Folders.
- Click on the Create Folder button.
- Move the message(s) to the local folder:
- Click to select the remote folder.
- Highlight a message or multiple messages.
- Place your mouse’s cursor over the messages and right-click.
- Choose either Copy To or Move To, then choose Local Folders → destination folder.
- Verify that your messages are in the local folder.
- If you selected Copy To in step 4, then select those messages in the remote folder again and press Delete.
- Your messages in the remote folder are flagged for deletion or will be moved into the Trash.
- Select Empty Trash from the File menu (three stacked lines icon) to permanently delete your messages.
How to copy emails between accounts in Thunderbird
- Go to your UTmail+ account and select messages you wish to copy to the other account. Note: do not select too many, because it might cause the process to crash. Keep it at around 50 messages at a time.
- Right-click or hold down the control key and left-click on the selected messages to pop out a menu.
- Go down to Copy to and select the account and thefolder you wish to copy them to. Note: we recommend copying rather than moving to ensure nothing goes wrong and the messages end up getting lost, which has been known to happen.

- Continue going through these steps until all messages are copied.