Learn how to save an email as a PDF document on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac without having to use third-party apps or any dedicated printing extensions.
PDF is an optimal format for saving emails because PDFs can shared and viewed across major platforms like iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android. You can also save these email PDFs locally on the device or in cloud storage like Dropbox.
This tutorial is for Apple’s built-in Mail app on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Third-party email clients such as Gmail have their own feature to print emails as PDF. Yep in mind that email attachments won’t be saved in your PDF, but you can always print them separately in the Mail app or saved them to your device to print later.
Convert emails to PDF on an iPhone or iPad
We’re using iPhone screenshots to illustrate this section, but the iPad steps are identical. First, launch the built-in Mail app and open an email, then tap the forward button and select Print.
You’ll see a preview of what your email would look printed. Take the preview fullscreen with a pinch-zoom gesture or hold then tap the preview.
What you’re seeing now is a PDF. Hit the share icon to share it with people, apps, or devices.
Convert emails to PDF on a Mac
Launch the built-in Mail app on your Mac and open the email to save as a PDF, then click File > Export as PDF in the menu bar, select the location for your PDF, and hit the Save button.
With the email PDF saved on your Mac, you can reference it anytime, even without an internet connection, as well as share it with people or include it in your regular backups.
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