Backing up Email
What's on the Page
Most email programs don't save mail messages as individual files. It's not usually necessary. You can create individual files yourself if you have a particular need. See how to at the bottom of this page - Methods of Saving Separate Emails.
To back up all emails you must copy the omnibusfileor files which contain them. Following are the backing up methods for Microsoft Outlook Express and Microsoft Outlook.
At the end of the page we deal with other methods of copying individual emails.
Backup Microsoft Outlook Express
Save the Hassle
There are programs available which can do this for you for you automatically. A good one is DBXtractwhich used to be free, but now costs $7. But it's useful to know how to do it yourself — then you know it's done properly,and if you're not familiar with searching your PC, it's a good exercise.
Using the *.dbx Files
These email folders are deeply buried in an impossibly named subfolder.
Click
on the Start Button- Click on Search or Find.
- Click on All Files and Folders in the left pane of the window.
- In the Search for files of folders named: box type: *.dbx (* is a "wildcard" representing any name or part name in a search).
- Ensure that the Include Subfolders check box is ticked. Click on it if it isn’t.
- Click on Search. You'll see something similar
to this:
- The files listed when the search is complete are where each of your email folders’ contents are stored. Copy those files as you would for any other backup. You can find out how to do that here: Backing Up.
- They will have names like Inbox.dbx and Deleted Items.dbx as you can see in the image above.
- If you right click on one of those files you can select Open Containing Folder from the top of the dialogue box, then you'll see the path to the files in Windows Explorer.
- Record the path so that you can find it again if you need to replace the files with your backups. On my laptop it'sC:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{6F3D4321-7392-4153-A6D7-4284960E9168}\Microsoft\Outlook Express, so you can see that Microsoft didn't intend for you to find it easily.
To Backup Microsoft Outlook
The outlook.pst file contains all of your Outlook data, not just emails, so the file is usually quite large. Several Megabytes. You’ll need to back it up to a CD, zip drive, second hard disk, flash drive or over a network if you can’t fit it on a floppy.
If you rely on Outlook it pays to back up this file regularly. In this case you might want to drag a shortcut to the relevant folder onto your desktop or into My Documents.
Windows 98
In Windows 98 the outlook.pst file is probably in C:\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook or the C:\Windows folder.
Windows XP
In Windows XP the file is probably in:
C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.
Where UserName is your logon name.
If you can’t find it:
- Click on the Start Button.
- Click on Find or Search.
- Click on Files and Folders.
- A dialogue box pops up. In the name box type: outlook.pst
- Ensure that the Include Subfolders check box is ticked. Click on it if it isn’t.
- Click on Search.
If you really must copy outlook.pst to a floppy disk you can compress the copy first. If it's still not less than 1.5 MB then you'll need to further reduce the size of it by deleting any obsolete or unnecessary data or archives from the Outlook email folders, address book, calendar, tasks and notes.
As you can see from the screenshot of the containing folder there are also one or more archive folders containing old data from Outlook. It's a matter of personal choice whether or not you backup or copy these as well as outlook.pst.
Outlook Export
Using Outlook's Export feature from the Menu bar: File/Import and Export, you can export the entire outlook.pst file to My Documents or any other location. You can then copy it to another backup medium if you wish.
I find this method more involved than the straight copy described above.
Outlook Add-in: Personal Folders Backup
Microsoft provide a tool for backing up Outlook to a user defined location at specified intervals. You can find it here: Outlook 2003 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup. Despite the name, it works with Outlook 2000 and later versions.
Synchronising Two PCs
If, as I do, you move between two computers regularly, you'll find it easier to automate the email backup process using methods described in the Backing Up Data page here.
Other Methods
The following methods apply to individual emails in Outlook Express or Outlook.
The .dbx files in Outlook Express are a bit of a hassle. If you prefer you can either:
- save your individual emails by dragging their icons from Outlook Express (or Outlook) to a folder in My Documents or anywhere else you choose,
- or you can save all or parts of them by cutting and pasting the required text or graphics from the message into a word processing document.
- or, when you have an email selected or open, go to the File Menu, click on Save as type, and select either *.eml (Outlook Express) *.msg (Outlook) or *.html (either program), accept or change the Save in: location and File name. Click Save.