Quick Ways to Save Emails from Outlook Web App to Computer

  • Written By  

  • Updated on February 6th, 2026

5/5 - (2 votes)

Local email backups are a vital practice for data sovereignty. Users save emails from Outlook Web App to Computer for long-term accessibility. This practice ensures the protection of important emails from cyber threats and cloud outages. In today’s article, we will outline three practical approaches, offering both manual solutions and automated solutions. The automated solution involves a tool, the Cigati Hotmail Backup Tool. This tool helps users convert their emails to various formats and email clients with complete data accuracy. 

Why Need to Export Emails from Outlook Web App to Hard Drive?

Users save emails from Outlook Web App to a Hard Drive to protect emails from risks inherent to cloud-only storage. Given below are a few needs to be considered:

  • Locally saving the email data acts as a protective layer against cyber threats such as account hacking.
  • Organizations make use of local archiving to provide a tamper-evident record of interaction for litigation and official audits.  
  • Moving large attachments to a local folder is a cost-effective solution instead of paying for a subscription. 
  • With a local copy of emails, users can access them offline, migrate to other platforms, and convert to different formats. 
  • A clutter-free cloud mailbox performs better and synchronises faster across platforms and devices. 

Manual Ways to Save Emails from Outlook Web App to Computer

To have a backup of your OWA mailbox, you have two techniques to execute. Below is the full description of each method in detail.

Download Emails from Outlook Web app to Hard Drive

  1. Open your OWA and navigate to the gear icon.
  2. Move forward to the View All Outlook Settings option.
  3. In the new wizard. Choose General > Privacy and Data > Export Mailbox.
  4. Once you click the Export button, it will start exporting your mailbox.
  5. Once your mailbox downloads, you’ll get a link to download the content of your mailbox.
  6. You’ll get a copy of your Outlook emails, calendar, and contacts.

The above steps can be used to save emails from Outlook Web App to a computer. If you think the overhead method has not worked previously, then you can choose the next alternative. 

Export Emails from Outlook Web App to Hard Drive

To use this optional method, first, you need to configure the OWA account in desktop-based Outlook. Adhere to the instructions to add an OWA account to the offline Outlook application.

Steps to add OWA account in desktop-based Outlook:

  1. Access your MS Outlook application and navigate to the File button.
  2. Choose the Add Account button and check Let me set up my account manually.
  3. From the list of options, select Outlook.com
  4. Enter the login credentials and tap on the More Settings option. Then, click Next.
  5. In the subsequent wizard, click Done. It will inform you about account configuration. 

The above steps can help you to save emails from Outlook Web App. If you face any issues in these steps, there may be a possibility of POP or IMAP not being correctly configured.

If the POP settings create an error in execution, follow the steps below to encounter the POP configuration issue.

Steps to Enable POP Configuration

  • Open the Outlook application in your existing system.
  • Move to the navigation bar and select Outlook or Mail.
  • Hit the App Launcher > Outlook.
  • Access the settings of the navigation bar and click on Options.
  • Select the account in the Options menu. Click on My Account.
  • Choose the POP option and enable it.
  • Close the Outlook application and reopen it.
  • Following, click on the Next button and close the window.
  • Click the Finish button to end the configuration process.

When the POP protocol is properly configured, you will be able to download emails from Outlook Web App to your desktop.

The above method helps save emails from OWA. Although you have two manual alternatives to accomplish this task. But these methods have several discrepancies. The list of a few is detailed below.

Constraints of the Manual Approach

  • The above process may take up to 4 days to export your mailbox.
  • It is a time-consuming task.
  • The aforesaid method demands technical expertise.
  • You must make an extra effort to save emails from Outlook Web App to Hard drives.
  • The above technique is full of complex steps.

These are a few drawbacks of the manual approach. And your single mistake can erase your data and leave you with no option to retrieve it. In this situation, you can choose an automated tool to secure your OWA mailbox.

Professional Way to Save Emails from Outlook Web App to Computer

The Cigati Hotmail Backup Tool is a standalone utility that migrates Hotmail mailboxes to more than 22+ email clients and file formats. In addition, the tool offers you the facility to save your attachments separately in PDF format. Moreover, there are several advanced features of the utility. It guarantees 100% data authenticity, integrity, and reliability. 

Simple steps to download the OWA emails to a Computer:

  1. Download the tool and open it on your system.
  2. Now, pick Sign in Hotmail Account and input your Hotmail account credentials.
  3. After that, from the list, select the desired folders you wish to save and click Next.
  4. Then, choose Save in File Format and select the desired format in which you want save your emails.
  5. Next, opt for the additional filters and click on Save Path to specify the destination folder.
  6. Lastly, click on the Download button to complete the process.

Conclusion

Users save emails from Outlook Web App to Computer to manage mailbox storage limits and ensure data portability. After following the above article systematically, you have enough ways to save emails from the Outlook Web App. But the manual approach has some flaws and may lead you to data loss. On the contrary, the automated tool, Cigati Hotmail Backup Tool, offers you several features. You can avail all of these features after using the demo or licensed tool.

You May Also Read: Import Hotmail Contacts to Gmail

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I export all my emails from the Outlook Web App at once?

Ans: With the Outlook Web App, users cannot export the emails in bulk at once. It does not provide any built-in option to bulk export the emails. For bulk export, you have to either sync your account with Outlook desktop or use a professional backup tool to backup all your emails.

Q: Is there a way to download multiple emails without using the desktop app?

Ans: To export multiple emails without using the desktop app, users need to have admin-level permissions such as eDiscovery. On the other hand, with the help of a professional tool, the user can backup their emails in bulk.

About The Author:

Rohit Singh is an Email Backup, Recovery & Migration Consultant and is associated with Software Company from the last 3 years. He writes technical updates and their features related to MS Outlook, Exchange Server, Office 365, and many other Email Clients & Servers.

Related Post

100% safe and secure100% Safe & SECURE
SupportLifetime Support (24X7)
Money BackMoney Back Policy
Trusted by CustomersTrusted by 10000+ Customers