Move your e-mail out of Outlook and into the folders of your choice
There's something about Microsoft Outlook that reminds me of the old Soviet Union: the program wants to centralize everything and store it in one big PST file that only it can access. There may be advantages to this approach to managing your e-mail, contacts, tasks, and calendar, but you know what can happen when you put all your eggs in one basket.
That's why it makes sense to move copies of your important Outlook files to folders that live outside the Office system. Saving messages and other data to local storage is relatively easy, whether you move them one at a time or in bunches. Note that this is different than backing up (or archiving) the messages, which I'll also describe.
To save a single message to a local folder, open it, and in Outlook 2003, click File > Save As, or in Outlook 2007 click the Office button and choose Save As twice. In both versions, navigate to the folder you want to use, choose a file type in the Save as type drop-down menu, and click Save. Note that in Outlook 2003, the message subject becomes the file name, but in Outlook 2007 you have to give the file a name.
The two most common formats for e-mail are HTML (.htm or .html) and Text Only (.txt): the former opens the message in a browser and preserves the look of the original, but the latter ensures that the message will open in just about any program.
You can also save multiple messages simultaneously by Ctrl-clicking to select them, or Ctrl-A to save them all, and then choosing File > Save As in Outlook 2003, or the Office button and Save As twice in Outlook 2007. They'll all be saved as a single text file, and you'll have to give the file a name. Each message in the file begins with the word "From".
To move an entire folder to your hard drive or other local storage, click File > Import and Export, choose Export to a file, click Next, select Comma Separated Values (Windows), click Next again, choose the folder you want to export, click Next yet again, browse to the location you want to store the folder (unless you want to go with the folder and file name Outlook chose), give the file a name, click Next once more, and then Finish.
Export the contents of an Outlook folder via the Import and Export wizard.
You could also choose to export the folder as a single Excel or Access file, but using either Comma Separated Values (Windows) or Tab Separated Values (Windows) makes the file much easier to read in Word.
Back up the Outlook way via archiving. You may also want to protect your mail, contacts, tasks, and calendar entries within Outlook by archiving your data. The primary advantage of archiving is that everything is backed up with a single action. The disadvantage is that everything lives in a single file, and the data is accessible only in Outlook.
To archive in Outlook 2003, click File > Archive > Personal Folders (or select individual folders, if you wish), enter the date, choose a location for your archive file, give it a name (or go with Outlook's default in both cases), and click OK. You can ensure that your archive includes everything by checking Include items with "Do Not AutoArchive" checked.
Archive all your Outlook data by choosing Personal Folders and the current date in the Archive dialog box.
You may also want to note the folder Outlook uses to store this and other files by default, because Microsoft does a good job of making the location impossible to guess. In XP, the path is C:\Documents and Settings\your login name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. In Vista, it's C:\Users\your login name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.
Let Outlook do the archiving for you. I get nervous when programs start doing things behind the scenes, but you might prefer to have Outlook archive a folder automatically. To do so, right-click the folder and choose Properties > AutoArchive. If you select Archive items in this folder using the default settings, click Default Archive Settings, and choose your preferred options. Another way to set up auto-archiving is to click Archive this folder using these settings, and make your choices. As far as I can tell, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Make your auto-archive selections in Outlook's AutoArchive dialog box.
Retrieve your archived data. An archive won't do you much good if you can't access it, and Outlook doesn't make the process particularly easy: Click File > Import and Export > Import from another program or file > Next > Personal Folder File (.pst) > Next. Now browse to and select your archive file, click Do not import duplicates, and choose Next > Finish.
Tomorrow: Ubuntu time-saving tips.
Dennis O'Reilly has covered PCs and other technologies in print and online since 1985. Along with more than a decade as editor for Ziff-Davis's Computer Select, Dennis edited PC World's award-winning Here's How section for more than seven years. He is a member of the CNET blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. 
I had to re-read this article twice to try and work out the reason for moving emails outside of Outlook and I only have one very simple question - WHY?
It would be nice if you could select multiple folders in Outlook, however. I use folders for each task I work on - sometimes I can have quite a few. The archive process will remove emails in these folders, but doesn't remove the folders once their empty. It'd be nice to be able to select several folders (say with CTRL), and then perform the same action on all of them. Even better, there could be an option to delete if the archiver empties a folder.
But have you tried Simply File, a one click solution to moving your mails to private pst files....have reviewed this here http://maheshcr.com/blog/2008/01/13/email-nirvana-via-xobni-and-simplyfile/
As far as I know, the Oracle mail system stores email, fax and even voicemail into the same messaging platform that can be accessed via Outlook (and in theory any query product)
1. Create at new PST file (File/New/Outlook Data File...) and save it in a convenient location within a folder called "email" (c:\Data\email). Call the PST file after your first name ("Brent") rather than the default "Personal Folders".
As you create the PST file, the first prompt is to give it a file name (e.g. "Brent") and a location (c:\Data\email) that you will see in the file system using Windows Explorer. You next pick the PST format (use default) and then to give it a mail folder name that appears in your All Mail Folders panel within Outlook (use "Brent" again).
2. Select the new PST file (?Brent?) and within it create a series of folders to your liking. This is analogous to creating folders in the file system using Windows Explorer, so use consistent names and structures.
If your default mail folders already have a good structure to them, you can just drag the individual folders to your new PST file folders and all the messages within them move as well.
3. When Outlook is initially set up, the mail comes into the default mail folder (Mailbox ? My Name). I usually leave this mailbox alone as in most offices you cannot easily change the name or location due to company policies. Thus, I use the default mail folder as my inbox and outbox only. As mail comes into my default Inbox, I drag the messages to the appropriate locations of my new PST folders.
After I send mail, I open up the default ?Sent Items? folder and drag the messages to appropriate locations of my new PST folders.
For more advanced usage, I have created ?Rules & Alerts? to move the incoming messages to my new PST folders automatically.
4. At appropriate times (daily, weekly, etc.) I simply quit Outlook, locate my new PST file in Windows Explorer (c:\Data\email\Brent.pst), copy it, and then rename it by adding the date to the file name (Brent yymmdd.pst).
5. Copy the duplicate PST file to a memory stick or separate computer for safe keeping.
Your mail is now organized and backed up using a fairly straight forward setup. You can then open the duplicate PST files if you want to check for lost or deleted messages and copy them back to the main PST.
I also create separate PST files to store work-related messages separate from my personal messages.
This process also helps users in offices that put a file size limit on the size of their default mail folder which is usually stored on the company?s Exchange Server. Moving the messages to the new PST keeps the default mail folder size very small and fast.
Brent
backups need to be automatic and non-application dependent if they're going to get done at all and Outlook pretty much prevents this by locking the .PST file for reading. It can't even be copied. I'm open to ideas but the only way I've so far found to backup a PST file is to kill the Outlook process.
You did have my hopes up; the all-in-one file system used by Outlook, QuickBooks and most Apple iLife and Pro apps is, in a word, amateur--programming at its worst.
As was mentioned in other comments, the single PST file concept is totally unacceptable. I have seen co-workers with PST files over 2 GB. Some have lost everything when this single file get corrupted.
Why Microsoft can't save your E-Mail folders as folders under My Documents totally escapes me. I will try out your suggestions on using the HTML or TXT format back-ups.
Thanks.
We provide our users with unlimited email storage (on non-MS email servers), whether they choose to use Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail. In addition,we archive all messages sent or received in a mySql database for compliance. As a result when the users fubars their mail we can always restore it for them, and they cannot "lose" any messages we are required to keep.
As far as home users, I found that those that use MS Outlook eventually lose all their email due to file corruption, etc. and no backups. Which is why I highly recommend gmail.
My husband just tried it with me and it didn't work. CANNOT put the folder outside of my PERSONAL. He wonders if it is there and may be hidden???? How big can a .pst file get??
I think your best bet would be to click on FILE - > OPEN OUTLOOK DATA FILE and select the file that you want to open. This should help to open the file. if that doesn't work, then try to use the PST fix utility to "fix" this PST file.
There is a big problem though. Moving an Outlook 2003 email (by dragging or seemingly any other method) into Explorer changes the modified date on the email item to the current date, rather than the original sent/received date. This is a pain as people often want to seach for items by the date. I haven't found an answer to this - anyone got any thoughts ??
So this is a major issue.
In May of 2007 he requested a proposal, which we sent along with our terms and conditions of business.
Our Lawyers have informed us that we need to produce this. Which we did via Email.
I use Outlook 2003. Part of Office pro edition.
Outlook sporadically, asks me if i want to auto archive files. I click on yes. I have always assumed this to mean that it is archiving my files to another folder within the program. These are very important emails.
Now this is the first time I have needed to retrieve an email. So, in Archive folders folder. There is a sent email folder, which has email dating back to August 2008.
But where is all the email prior to August 2008?
I need to get my email from May 2008, and I need to do that quickly. This Email is so important it will liteally mean the difference beween us losing or winning the case in court.
I have tried clicking on Tools, Options, Other tab, Auto Archive,
The settings here state:
Clean out items older than: 6 Months.
Does this mean that Auto archive will permanantly delete emails from the archive folder, after 6 months? If it does i am totally screwed. I dont want to come off melodramatic here, but I kid you not when I say this WILL cost me my job and then maybe even my house.
Surely the entire point of having auto archive is so that emails wil be saved? 6 months must be a factory default setting that microsoft have applied. If that is the case, I will be totally furious with Microsoft. If people click yes on auto archiving email, because they want to save it, then surely it is common sense that they want to save it for more then 6 months. And surely you shuld be informed that it will be irretrievablely deleted after 6 months!!!?
Please can anyone here help me?
Thankyou.
- by thepcmdaz September 6, 2009 8:04 AM PDT
- I'm curious if there is a way to save these outside of outlook in htm or txt format and also bring the attachments.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(18 Comments)