Backing up Outlook Express (OE) Emails

by Brian Hooker

Email is now a huge part of most everyone's life and Microsoft Outlook Express is usually the email client/program of choice. The question often arises " How do I back up my Outlook Express Email?"  You will need a CD/DVD burner or a memory key to do it. Here is a rundown of the steps to; First, make it easier, and Second, how to back messages, email addresses and settings up. Once set up, it doesn't take much to update.

You first need to be able to easily FIND where your email is stored. By default, it is usually in a folder buried DEEP within the hard drive. 
Like "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application\Data\Identities\
{1A1A3A2E-3E1E-4B06-8964-AECCDB976C8C}\Microsoft\Outlook Express"  Good luck trying to find THAT folder. So lets start my moving the data/emails contained in that folder.

Create new My Mail Folder
A) From your desktop, Double click on "My Documents" to open up that folder.
B) Once in My Documents, go to the menu bar at the top and do FILE > NEW > FOLDER. A new folder will be created and the name (New Folder will be highlighted in blue. Type in the new name "My Email" and hit the enter key to save the new name.

NOW... Move Message store
Open up Outlook Express.
C) To change the location of your message store:
    On the Tools menu, click Options, click the Maintenance tab, and then click Store Folder.
    Click Change, and then select a new folder for your message store.
    Move the slider to the top to find then double click on My Documents, Then find and click on My Email folder you created above.
    Once selected, click OK, Then OK again, read (or not) the message about restarting, then close out of all windows.
    Close out of Outlook Express, then restart Outlook Express
D) When OE restarts, it will first move all your messages into the new folder My Documents\My Email, then open up normally.
You can check that all happened correctly by minimizing or closing OE, then from the desktop, Double click on "My Documents" to open and then Double click on My Email to open up that folder. You should see a bunch of files that represent your folders in OE (Like Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Deleted, etc). If you don't see the files, you need to recheck C) above. I assume that the files are there and we can continue.

Back up other important stuff... Address Book
There is other stuff as important as your emails to also backup, such as your addresses and settings.
Open up/ get back into Outlook Express.
E) To export your Address Book files to another Windows Address Book (WAB):
  - Click on "ADDRESSES" icon on the toolbar in Outlook Express
  - In Address Book, on the File menu, point to Export, and then click Address Book (WAB).
  - Browse again to the My Documents folder, then double click My Email folder to open it. ( The top area should say Save in: My Email)
  - Click in then type in the File Name area, a name for the file. Like "Brians Address Book"
  - Click on the Save button. If the file exists (you have done this before) you will get a confirmation Replace the file box, click Yes), another confirmation box appears saying you are successful. Click OK. Close out of Address Book, back into Outlook Express.
You now have your Windows Address book also saved in the My Documents\My Email folder. Good.

Now.. Mail Account settings.
Open up/ get back into Outlook Express.
F) On the Tools menu, click Accounts, click the Mail tab
  You probably have one mail account, some people have more. One for each email account they have.
G) Click on/highlight the first (only?) account to highlight in blue, then click Export.
H) Browse again to the My Documents folder, then double click My Email folder to open it. ( The top area should say Save in: My Email)
I) The File Name area should already be filled in with the account name and extension .iaf. Click Save. If the file exists (you have done this before) you will get a confirmation Replace the file box, click Yes). You are returned to the Internet Accounts box.
 * If you have more than one account, repeat G, H, I until you have done all accounts.
J) When you are done exporting, click Close to return to OE.
K) Close out of Outlook Express, and everything else.

Checking...
Open up the My Documents \My Email folder. You should see...
 - files that represent your folders in OE (Like Inbox, Drafts, Sent, etc)
 - your Windows address book file (like Brians Address Book.wab),
 - Your Account setting(s) (like mail.nucleus.com.iaf)
All good? Then close up all again.

Before Backup, Compact Folders
L) Open up/ get back into Outlook Express.
M) On the File menu, point to Folder, and then click Compact All Folders.
This cleans up, reduces file sizes and generally makes Outlook Express run better.

Backing up..
As there is no way you can back this much stuff up to floppies, you will have to burn a CD/DVD of the contents
 or copy the data to a USB memory key.
Open up the My Documents folder. Find and right click on the My Email folder, go down to Properties.
You will see on the General Tab, the Size: in MB (megabytes) of your My Email folder's contents/data/emails.

N) Your Backup Options:
Make sure Outlook Express is closed before backing up.
If the Size is less than 256 mb, then you could copy the folder to a 256MB memory key.
If the Size is less than 512 mb, then you could copy the folder to a 512MB memory key.
If the Size is less than 700 mb, then you could burn the folder to blank CD disk.
If the Size is less than 4.7 GB, then you could burn the folder to blank DVD disk.

As there are MANY different programs available to burn CD's (Nero, Easy CD Creator, etc), I will leave it up to you to know how to burn a CD of the My Documents \My Email folder and contents. If there is room on the CD/DVD, you should just backup / burn the whole My Documents folder with everything in it for backup.
As for memory keys, you just drag and drop (copy) the My Email folder onto the memory key drive.

Once completed once, to backup again, repeat steps E) - N).

Done!! Simple isn't it!

Brian Hooker
(403) 540-3856