Creating email backups

Backing up your e-mail is essential to protect your communication history and ensure you don’t lose important messages. Ruachost offers several ways to create and manage e-mail backups depending on your hosting plan and preferred tools.

Why Back Up Your E-mail?

• Prevent data loss in case of accidental deletion.
• Protect against server or client-side corruption.
• Maintain an archive of important business or personal communications.
• Ensure compliance with record-keeping requirements.

Methods for Backing Up E-mail

1. Use an E-mail Client for Local Backups

You can use an e-mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, or Apple Mail to create local copies of your messages.

Steps (example with Thunderbird):

1. Configure your e-mail account in Thunderbird using IMAP.

2. Create a Local Folder in Thunderbird.

3. Drag and drop messages or entire folders from your IMAP account into the Local Folder.

   • This saves a permanent copy on your computer, independent of the server.

2. Full Account Backups

If you generate a full account backup in your Ruachost panel (cPanel or Plesk), your e-mail is included.

• cPanel:

  • Backups include the mail/ directory inside your home folder.
  • Each e-mail account has its own subdirectory with Inbox and Sent folders.

These files can be imported into an e-mail client (like Thunderbird with the ImportExportTools add-on) for easy viewing.

3. Automatic Backups with JetBackup

Every Ruachost hosting plan includes automatic backups with JetBackup, and your email is part of them:

• Restore a single email account or your whole mail directory from an earlier backup in cPanel.
• No setup needed. Backups run automatically.

See Restoring files, email and databases using JetBackup.

4. E-mail Forwarders as a Backup Method

You can configure an e-mail forwarder to send a copy of all incoming messages to another e-mail address.

• This ensures you always have a duplicate copy stored elsewhere.
• To back up sent mail, configure your client to automatically BCC the backup address.