In a market dominated by Gmail and Outlook, AOL email’s popularity rapidly shrunk, and as a result, the company exchanged a few hands in the last few years. Acquired by Verizon in 2015, the carrier eventually sold AOL and Yahoo to a private equity firm in May 2021. If you are on the fence about moving on from AOL mail, export and back up your important emails on your hard drive, PC, or atop Chromebook.

The AOL homepage is packed with news, auto-play videos, ads, and other irrelevant stuff. The company’s email service is nothing to write home about, either. Before you lose your important AOL emails to a ransomware attack, back up your relevant emails in several formats. You can export your AOL emails using the AOL web version, Gmail web, or Outlook desktop.

Go the the More menu and select Print to print your AOL messages

Why should you export your AOL emails?

Check the following reasons if you are still unsure about backing up your AOL emails on an external drive or the PC:

How to export your AOL emails on the web

You can use the AOL web version to download individual emails as PDFs. Although it’s a time-consuming process, the steps below are handy for exporting relevant emails as PDFs.

Now, repeat the same for all your important AOL emails and save them as a PDF file on your desktop or Mac.

Select Microsoft Print to PDF and choose print options, then select Print to save your AOL messages in PFD format

How to export your AOL emails using Gmail web

This is another effective way to export AOL emails on the desktop. You need to import your AOL emails into the Gmail inbox and download messages on the go. Here’s what you’ll do:

You can follow the same for all your AOL messages and export them as .eml format on the PC.

Select a folder to download AOL messages as PDF files

How to export your AOL emails using Outlook desktop

Microsoft Outlook desktop app supports Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, AOL, and other email providers. If you added AOL to the Outlook desktop app, use the steps below to export the inbox in no time.

Outlook generates a backup file and saves it on your PC. You need to remember the Outlook data file password, as the app asks for this password when you import AOL messages to other email inboxes.

In Gmail on Mac, click the settings gear and select See all settings.

Use third-party apps to export AOL emails

you may also export your AOL messages on the desktop using third-party apps. Although these apps offer more functions like auto-backup and email filtering, we recommend sticking with the methods mentioned above. Such third-party apps often require a fee and may not work as expected. You should pay for apps that offer a money-back guarantee.

Save AOL messages

Yahoo is yet another email service that’s on a sinking ship. If you want toexport your Yahoo emails, check our dedicated guide to do so on the desktop.

In the Settings screen, go to Accounts and Import to import emails from another email account