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How to Download Emails From IMAP Server to Computer?

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Published By Jamie Kaler 
Rollins Duke
Approved By Rollins Duke
Published On June 16th, 2025
Reading Time 6 Min Read

Are you looking for a way to download emails from IMAP server to your computer? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the steps to download IMAP emails to your computer.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It’s a protocol used by email clients to access emails stored on a remote server.

IMAP is a secure protocol. This means that your emails are encrypted when they are sent and received. This ensures that your emails are kept safe and secure.

Therefore, IMAP is a great way to access your emails from multiple devices. It is also a secure protocol that ensures your emails are kept safe and secure. If you are looking for a way to access your emails from multiple devices, IMAP is a great option.

Why Is It Crucial to Download IMAP Emails?

Find the most common reasons to download emails from IMAP server:

  • Download a copy of your emails to your computer.
  • Letting you access some emails without being on the internet.
  • Making it a little easier to store other important messages, just in case.
  • Generally, freeing up some space on your mail server.
  • This makes it easier to move emails to another device or account.
  • Protecting your emails if your account is deleted or hacked.

Perfect Solution to Download Emails from IMAP Server

One of the most important features of IMAP is the ability to download emails from the server. This is especially useful if you need to access emails from a different device or if you need to back up your emails. To do this, you can use the RecoveryTools IMAP Backup Tool. This tool allows you to download emails from IMAP account to your computer.

The software has been created with highly advanced algorithms, which makes it the first choice of users and easy to use for all technical and non-technical users. so simply download the software and install it to download IMAP emails.

Quick Steps to Download All IMAP Emails

  • Step 1: Install and run the IMAP Downloader software.
  • Step 2: Enter the login details for the IMAP account.
  • Step 3: Select the required folders/subfolders.
  • Step 4: Choose the required saving option.
  • Step 5: Browse to the path and hit the Backup icon.

How to Download Emails from IMAP Server? Complete Guide

  1. Download, install, and run the IMAP Downloader tool on your computer.

    tool to download emails from IMAP server

  2. Enter your email account credentials (username and password) and click on the “Login” button.

    [Please note that several accounts need additional settings to connect with applications. For example, Gmail requires you to enable 2-factor authentication and generate an app password to use instead of your original password in the software.

    account credentials

  3. The IMAP Downloader software will add your IMAP folders among which you may select the particular folders you want to download emails from IMAP.

    add your IMAP folders

  4. Select the file format to download emails from IMAP server.

    Select the file format

  5. Choose the Filter options – you can select name convention, date range, or export all email contents.

    Filter options

  6. Browse to the desired location using the Change…. Button and hit the Backup button.

    Browse the desired location

  7. Click the “Backup” button to start the process to download emails from IMAP server.

    migrate Exchange to Gmail

  8. Wait for the download process to complete. The time taken for the backup would depend on the size of your email content.

    process to download emails from IMAP server

  9. Once the process has finished, you can access your backup files from the destination folder you selected earlier.

    access your backup files

Prime Features of the IMAP Downloader Software

Here are the benefits of using the software to download emails from IMAP server:

  • The software allows users to download emails from multiple IMAP accounts at once simply by uploading a CSV file containing login details.
  • Users can easily download emails from all default and desired folders including Inbox, Sent, Draft, Spam, Trash, and other created folders.
  • The IMAP Downloader software retains data integrity and email components including Bcc, Cc, To, From, Subject, Formatting, Images, Signatures, and attachments.
  • Users can easily download all their emails into 30+ file formats and email clients i.e., PST, PDF, EML, EMLX, PDF, DOC, TXT, HTML, MBOX, Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, Office 365, etc.
  • The advanced filter option helps users to download selective and required via Date Range, To, From, Subject, etc.

How to Download Email from IMAP Server Manually?

Outlook is a powerful email client that allows users to access their emails from multiple accounts, including IMAP accounts. IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a protocol used by email clients to retrieve emails from a server. This is a popular protocol used by many email providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.com.

First, let’s discuss how to download emails from IMAP server with the help of Outlook.

  1. To do this, you will need to open Outlook and select the “File” tab.
  2. From there, select “Account Settings” and then “Account Settings” again.
  3. On the “E-mail” tab, select “New” and then “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”.
  4. Select “Internet E-mail” and then enter your IMAP account information (every email provider has different settings).
  5. Once you have entered your IMAP account information, select “More Settings” and then “Advanced”.
  6. On the “Advanced” tab, select “Leave a copy of messages on the server”. This will ensure that all emails are downloaded to your Outlook account.

Now that you have configured your IMAP account in Outlook, you can begin downloading emails. To do this, select the “Send/Receive” tab and then “Send/Receive All Folders”. This will download emails from IMAP account to your Outlook account.

There are several benefits to using IMAP in Outlook. First, it allows you to access your emails from multiple devices. This means that you can access your emails from your laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Additionally, IMAP allows you to keep your emails synchronized across all devices. This means that any changes you make to your emails on one device will be reflected on all other devices.

Additional Methods:

Export IMAP Emails to PST
Export IMAP Emails to MBOX
Export IMAP Emails to PDF
Export IMAP Data to CSV
Export IMAP to EML

Conclusion

Using IMAP in Outlook is a great way to access your emails from multiple devices. It also allows you to keep your emails synchronized across all devices. Additionally, you can use the RecoveryTools IMAP downloader to download emails from IMAP server to your computer. This will ensure that you have a backup of your emails in case something happens to your IMAP account.

We hope this blog post has been helpful in showing you how to download emails from the server to your computer.