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Backup in Outlook Express

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

You were happily working on your machine when suddenly it started misbehaving. Nothing seemed to work, and finally, the machine crashed. The only solution was to format the partition and reinstall Windows. But what would happen to all your e-mail? Can you take a backup of it or would it also be formatted? If you use OE 5 or higher, then read on (Eudora users see separate article on how to backup from Eudora).

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OE by default, stores all its messages deep in a cryptic location. You can easily search for it by doing a search for the keyword inbox. It should show you a path like the following:

Drive letter:\Documents and Settings\User Profile\Local Settings\Application Data\ Identities\IdentityCode\Microsoft\Out- look Express

Where drive letter is the drive where your OE is installed, User Profile is the user name you’re logged in as, Identity Code is a folder with a very lengthy alpha-numeric code. All e-mail are stored with a .dbx extension. One way to backup this mail is to create another ‘easier to understand folder’ somewhere else, and move all the mail there. But the problem with this is that it won’t get automatically updated. The other way out of this is to change the location of your mail folder through OE itself. To do this, go to Tools>Options, and move to the Maintenance tab. Here, you’ll find a button labeled Store Folder. When you click this, it will ask you to specify the new location for all your e-mail folders (inbox, outbox). Specify the new location of your choice and click ok. After this, close and restart Outlook Express. It will automatically shift all your e-mail folders to the new location. To backup your Address book, export it by going to File menu>Export>Address Book, and choosing the comma separated text file (.CSV extension) format. Save it in the same location as your email. This however, can’t be automatically updated, so you’ll have to do so manually.

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