How to Back Up AOL Mail

AOL Mail stores your messages online, so losing access to an account or deleting a message can put important email at risk. A reliable backup is a separate copy saved on your computer or another storage device. Simply viewing AOL messages in another email program does not guarantee a backup: programs that synchronize with AOL can also carry deletions from the online mailbox into their local copies. Thunderbird’s explanation of IMAP synchronization describes how those changes can carry across.

For a readable local archive, mailmd is the best fit: it copies email into individual Markdown files on your computer and keeps the archive separate from AOL. Markdown is a plain-text format that is easy to open and search. The steps below show how to connect AOL Mail, make a copy, and protect it as a backup.

Back up AOL Mail with mailmd #

mailmd is a free, open-source command-line tool. A command-line tool runs by entering instructions in a terminal window. mailmd connects to email accounts through IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), a standard way for email programs to access mail folders, and saves messages as files on your computer.

On Linux, macOS, or Windows in Git Bash, install mailmd and connect your AOL account:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vincentsch/mailmd/main/install.sh | sh
mailmd connect imap --email you@example.com
mailmd sync

Replace you@example.com with your AOL address. The connection process may require an AOL app password, which is a password for an email program rather than your regular account password. Follow the sign-in prompts and AOL’s current security requirements; the required password method depends on the connection.

mailmd saves the archive under ~/mail/<account>. Each message gets its own Markdown file, with email headers such as sender and subject stored at the top. mailmd changes message text from HTML, a format for structuring text and links, into readable Markdown. It saves attachments beside each message. For a copy of each message in its original email format, run the sync with --keep-raw.

mailmd opens AOL folders in read-only mode. It asks only for permission to read mail, and it does not move, delete, change, or send messages. Spam and trash are excluded unless requested. The archive keeps files for messages later deleted from AOL and marks them as deleted on AOL's mail service.

Check the archive and keep it current #

After the first sync, open a few files and confirm that they contain full message text and expected attachments. Check older messages and custom folders too. Spam and trash are excluded by default, so choose those folders explicitly if they belong in your backup.

On later syncs, mailmd adds new messages and updates whether each message is marked as read or starred. To keep the archive current, schedule mailmd sync --quiet on your computer with a tool that runs commands at set times. Options include cron and systemd, as well as launchd and Task Scheduler. If a sync stops, mailmd keeps what it already saved; the next run continues.

The archive is not encrypted by mailmd. Store it where only your user account has access, and make a second copy on a separate drive or in a protected backup location. Keeping a copy only in the archive folder on the same computer does not protect it if that computer is lost or damaged. mailmd does not delete archive files when messages disappear from AOL, but you should still open a sample backup to check that it works.

What the backup includes and excludes #

mailmd creates files you can open in a text editor or note app. You can search them with grep or rg (command-line tools that find text), or filter the archive with jq (a tool for working with JSON) using its index.jsonl file. It has no built-in search engine. You can also keep the archive in Git or include it in a regular computer backup.

An email archive does not automatically preserve your AOL contacts. Export contacts separately if you need them; Proton’s instructions for exporting AOL contacts describe a contacts-to-CSV option.

mailmd is for keeping and searching a local copy. It does not restore messages to AOL or create PST or PDF files. It also does not free AOL mailbox space. If you want to delete messages online to free space, first verify that the backup contains what you need. mailmd does not delete them for you.