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I'm not going into the merits of why you need to backup your email. If you haven’t discovered the benefits of backup yet it’s probable that you haven't experienced the hair-pulling and head banging associated with this extraordinary phenomenon.
Here’s a sure and straightforward method for backing up your email and getting a good night sleep. It assumes only the basic user skills and relies on two basic techniques - the proper identification of your email client (that’s Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail) and use of the trusty copy/paste function.
If you're deep into the cloud and relying heavily on free Web Mail such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Messenger or some other aptly named online service, you're on your own. Each provider will have their very unique and, no-doubt, exceedingly well documented way of taking a backup of your email messages. Don't for a minute expect an easy ride.
Back to backups! As with everything else computing, you're looking for a single file or group of files that represent your entire collection of email messages depending on the email client you’re using. In tech lingo we'll call this your message store.
Outlook Express uses a collection of .dbx files and the newer Windows Mail client bundled with the highly acclaimed, highly successful, highly everything else Vista uses a collection of .eml files. Outlook 97 2000/2/3/7 uses a single file suffixed .pst containing all email messages, contact, appointments, tasks and notes. Identifying your email client is easy. Open the application and take the time to appreciate the Title Bar. That’s the horizontal bar running the entire width of the screen at the very top. The title bar will reveal the all important application name.
In an ideal world of user-friendly computing, you would expect to find all of your data including email messages in one easily accessible location, readily primed for backup. My Documents sounds like the right place. But no! The lads behind your favourite Operating System don't like you dabbling around backstage. Not only have they put it elsewhere but have also hidden the container out of sight so even if you're in the right location, you're none the wiser.
Search to the rescue. As long as you know what you're looking for, and it really exists, the search utility built-in to Windows WILL find it for you. Click Start and then Search followed by All Files and Folders. In the field named All or Part of the filename type *.dbx for Outlook Express or *.pst for Outlook 200x. For Vista's Windows Mail, the file types you’ll be searching for are *.eml. But just before you rush off to hit the Search button click More Advanced Options and make sure that Search Hidden Files and Folders is ticked.
To confirm that the visible results are valid you should take a look at the date stamp of the files. Select View from the pull-down menu and choose Details. Each file should appear on a separate line and should also display the date and time when it was last modified. If the dates reflect the last time you accessed your email then that’s confirmation you're about to backup the right files. Don’t worry if you see files that have an old date stamp, we’ll take the lot!
 The actual backup is done by copying all the files listed in the results page to a USB Drive, Pen Drive, Thumb Drive, USB Stick or whatever else you care to call these incredibly big-small devices. To copy all the files in one move, select Edit from the drop-down menu and choose the Select All option. You should see all the files suddenly highlighted. Right-click on any of the now highlighted files and select Copy. Now explore your pen drive, right-click and select Paste. You should now see the files flying across. With any luck you won't be told you’ve run out of disk space on your pen drive. I suggest using the biggest Pen drive you can lay your hands on for this task.
One last thing, If you care for your Email Addresses and you’re using Outlook Express you’ll need to search for the *.wab file and copy this across to your pen drive. For Windows Mail, Fire up Windows Contacts and use the export feature.
Happy Backups ! |
Backup - before you wish you had!
