Depending on how you access your email, you have many options for backing up your email messages to move to another email provider. Follow the instructions below for your email type.

Jump to: WEBMAIL | IMAP | POP3 (What is the difference between IMAP and POP3?)

WEBMAIL

Webmail customers access their email via our online email portal at http://mail.pronetsweb.com/. This allows you to access your email from any computer with internet access.

1. Create a New Folder on your desktop (Right-click > New > Folder) and name it whatever you like. This will be the folder you store the backup files for your email messages.  
2. Open a web browser and login to your email at http://mail.pronetsweb.com/
3. Click on "Settings" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
4. In the Email Options tab under General Settings, change "Number of messages listed per page" to "100".
5. Click "Save".
6. For each folder you want to back up, make sure it is highlighted in the lefthand pane.
7. Click the checkbox in the very top column to select all the message on the current page.
8. Under the "More" dropdown menu, click "Export to Zip". This will export your selected messages and save them to a compresses zip file.*
9. A new window will pop up prompting you to save or open the file. Click on Save to save and select the new folder you created on your desktop in Step 1.
10. Make sure to name the saved file something descriptive (such as emailbackup1.zip) as you will be saving multiple backup files to your computer.
11. Click the next page button in your webmail
12. Repeat from step 7 above until you have back up the entire contents of the selected folder.
13. Repeat from step 6 above for each folder in the lefthand pane.

*Before cancelling your email accounts, make sure your new email host can import your email messages form the exported zip files.

IMAP

Customers who access their email via IMAP use an email client such as Outlook, Outllook Express, or Windows Live Mail to name a few of the available clients. Since IMAP customes store their email on the server, the instructions below will move your email messages off the server and onto your local machine. Instructions for the most common email clients used by our customers are listed below. If your email client is not listed below, please consult your software vendor for backup instructions.

Outlook & Outlook Express

1. Make a folder for the messages you wish to keep under Personal Folders. To do this, right click on Personal Folders and left click on New Folder. Then, type in the name of the folder. If you're using Outlook 2007, Folder contains Mail and Post Items and make sure it's set to Personal Folders.
2. You should see your folders on the server underneath that. It should say This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or imap.emailsrvr.com or incoming.pronetsinc.com. If you expand that, you'll see your folders.
3. Click on the folder on the server that you wish to move locally and drag it into the new folder you made under Personal Folders. It may take a while depending on the size of the folder. You can also do this with individual messages.
4. To back these folders up on your machine, you can use Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders backup tool. Here are instructions for doing that: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010875321033.aspx

Windows Live Mail

1. Create a New Folder on your desktop and name it whatever you like.
   Note:  This is the folder that you will be exporting your message folders that contain your email messages into.
2. Open Windows Live Mail.
3. Click on the Tools icon drop down arrow, select Export email, and click on Email messages.
4. Select Microsoft Windows Live Mail, and click Next.
5. Click on the Browse button.
6. Navigate to and select the New Folder that you created in step 1, then click on OK.
7. Click on the Next button.
8. To export all message folders from all email accounts:
   1. Select (dot) All folders and click on Next
   2. Go to Step 10.
9. To export selected message folders from selected email accounts.
   1. Select (dot) Selected folders, press and hold CTRL key and select (left click on) the random message folders that you want to export, release the CTRL key, then click on Next.
10. Click on the Finish button.
11. The selected message folders have now been exported into the New Folder from step 1. Save the New Folder to a safe location. This is the folder that is needed to be able to import or restore your messages.

POP3

Customers who access their email via POP3 use an email client such as Outlook, Outllook Express, or Windows Live Mail to name a few of the available clients.  Typically, you will not have to take any action to backup your email from our server as all of your email is stored on your Local Machine. To switch to your new account you may do one of the following:

1. Change the login credentials for your POP3 account to the credentials provided to you by your new email host. This will allow you to continue receiving email in the same inbox as before.
2. Add a new account for your new email host. This will create a new inbox for your new email host and retain the old inbox with the messages that were downloaded from your PRONETS email account.

The Difference Between IMAP and POP3

When using IMAP, the mail is stored on the mail server. Unless you copy a message to a “Local Folder” the messages are never copied to your PC.

POP3 works by reviewing the inbox on the mail server, and downloading the new messages to your computer's hard drive. IMAP downloads the headers of the new messages on the server, then retrieves the message you want to read when you click on it.

When using POP3, your mail is stored on your PC.