There’s a moment every email user experiences sooner or later — that sudden fear that one day your account might get locked, hacked, or suspended. In that moment, you realize something important: if all your important emails exist in just one place, they aren’t truly safe. They’re simply stored in a fragile digital corner where one mistake, one password leak, or one suspicious login can wipe out years of communication.
Backing up an Outlook.com account sounds technical, but once you understand the why, the how becomes surprisingly comforting. In this guide, we walk through a complete, detailed, human-tone explanation of how to create a safe backup of your Outlook.com emails and contacts, using your computer as the second home for your data.
Why Backing Up Outlook.com Matters
Before diving into steps, it’s worth pausing for a moment to understand the idea behind email backup. Most Outlook.com users assume their messages will always be there because Microsoft is a big, reliable company — but reliability isn’t protection. If your account is stored in one place and one place only, then any problem with that single place risks everything.
Imagine a locked room. If the key disappears, the room might as well not exist.
That’s exactly how cloud-only email behaves.
Your Outlook.com account stores email exclusively on Microsoft’s servers unless you create a local copy. If a hacker breaks in, if your password is reset by someone else, if suspicious activity causes Microsoft to disable your mailbox temporarily — or permanently — there is nothing you can do unless you already have a backup.
This is why backing up isn’t just a “good practice.” It’s protection against the unknown.
The Easiest Way to Back Up Outlook.com Email: Use a Desktop Email Program
One of the simplest and most traditional ways to back up online email is by downloading it into a desktop email client. When you do this, your PC becomes a second storage location. If you already run regular PC backups, the safety multiplies.
But there is one complication:
Windows’ new built-in “Outlook” app (the one bundled with Windows 10 and 11 today) doesn’t store mail locally the way older programs did. It’s more like a web interface rather than a proper email downloader.
So we turn to a reliable, long-trusted choice: Thunderbird.
Thunderbird is a free, open-source email application that stores your email physically on your computer. It allows you to access your Outlook.com inbox, sync messages, and keep copies of everything — even if the online version disappears.
Let’s walk through the process step by step.
Setting Up Thunderbird for Outlook.com Email Backup
Before we dive in, here’s a quick transition to keep the flow natural:
Now that we know why backups matter, let’s talk about how to make them happen.
Start by downloading and installing Thunderbird. Once installed, open it, and you’ll see a clean window waiting for you to add an email account.
Thunderbird guides you through account setup:
- Choose Set Up Another Account → Email
- Enter your Outlook.com email address
- Click Continue
Thunderbird will automatically detect the recommended settings. It will pick IMAP, which is perfect because IMAP keeps folders in sync while still letting you download everything locally.
Once you confirm the options, Thunderbird logs into your Outlook.com mailbox and immediately begins displaying your folders and messages.
What’s actually happening behind the scenes is simple but powerful:
every email that loads on-screen is now also beginning to exist on your PC.
Why You Should Force Thunderbird to Download Everything
There’s a small detail many users overlook. IMAP email clients often only download recent messages unless forced to sync everything offline. To make sure the entire mailbox is stored on your computer, Thunderbird offers a very useful feature.
Press the Alt key → open the File menu → go to Offline → choose Download/Sync Now.
This command instructs Thunderbird to fetch every message from every folder — Inbox, Sent Items, Archive, custom folders — anything stored in your Outlook.com account.
It’s the digital equivalent of packing your entire wardrobe into a suitcase before leaving for a long trip.
Repeating this process periodically ensures new emails get downloaded, too.
Backing Up Outlook.com Contacts
Now we reach the part most people find frustrating: contacts.
Unlike emails, contact information doesn’t always sync cleanly between services. Outlook.com stores a lot of fields, images, notes, birthday data, and custom labels — and not every program understands all of them.
The safest approach is to export your contacts manually from Outlook.com.
Here’s the human-style explanation: instead of relying on automation or sync, you take your address book and save it into a simple, universal, widely-supported CSV file. This file can live on your computer, and because it’s just text data, almost anything can read it.
Once saved to your PC, the contact file becomes part of your regular computer backups. If something goes wrong with your Outlook.com account in the future, you won’t be stuck with an empty “People” screen.
Where Thunderbird Stores Your Email on Your PC
Now comes a practical question that eventually everyone asks:
“Where are these emails actually stored on my computer?”
Thunderbird keeps everything inside a folder called Profiles.
Here’s the narrative way to think about it: your entire email world — messages, attachments, folders, account settings — lives inside a single protected home on your PC.
To find it:
- Open File Explorer
- Navigate to:
C:\Users\<your-username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ - Inside this folder you’ll see one or more profile folders with names that look random (for example:
xyz123.default).
If you open the folder for your active profile, you’ll find subfolders such as IMAPMail, where Thunderbird saves Outlook.com emails in a structured format.
If you want a simple explanation:
this Profiles folder is what gets backed up.
If you back up your entire PC, this automatically gets included.
Can You Use Thunderbird as Your Main Email App?
At this point, many people begin to wonder whether they should simply use Thunderbird as their normal email application. The answer is surprisingly encouraging: yes, you absolutely can.
Using Thunderbird does not break anything.
Whatever you send using Thunderbird still appears in your Outlook.com Sent Items folder online. Whatever you read or delete syncs the same way. You’re simply adding a new, safer window into your mailbox — one that also keeps a physical copy on your machine.
Even if you continue using Outlook.com in the browser for daily tasks, opening Thunderbird once or twice a week ensures your backup remains up to date.
What About Restoration?
Since a backup is only useful when you can restore it, let’s address that briefly. If something happens to your Outlook.com account, Thunderbird’s stored data remains intact. You can re-import the profile, reconnect it, and instantly regain access to every email that was previously synced.
Contacts, too, can be restored by re-importing your CSV export back into the Outlook.com People section.
The whole idea is that you always have a fallback — a second home for your digital life.
A Simple Reminder Before We End
Never depend on a single copy of anything important.
A cloud mailbox is convenient but fragile. The moment it gets hacked or disabled, it becomes painfully clear why backups matter.
Backing up Outlook.com email using Thunderbird is one of the simplest, safest habits you can add to your digital routine. Whether you check once a week or once a month, the peace of mind is worth the few minutes it takes.
Disclaimer
The methods described here focus on safe, user-controlled data storage. Backup procedures can vary slightly based on operating system versions and email configuration updates. Always double-check account credentials, avoid sharing passwords, and ensure your PC backup system is functioning correctly.
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