Comments on: Move your e-mail out of Outlook and into the folders of your choice

Organize and safeguard your messages by storing them in separate folders on your hard drive or other local storage device.

[Martin_Australia]

***???

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?

[jture]

One reason to move emails out of Outlook is if you're on a corporate email system that has folder size limits. If you keep too many messages with or without attachments in your Outlook folders and exceed your size limit, you will not be able to receive new messages until you make room in your Outlook folders. (Come to think of it, some people may prefer not to get any more email...)

[PrivacyWonk]

I find many reasons to export my e-mail files to other folders or archives. Your right it is simple using Outlook. But how, prey tell, can you save multiple messages simultaneously as HTML or .txt files to another folder if your using Outlook Express? The process for saving individual files is essentially the same as with Outlook -- saving multiple files all at once has eluded me. Any Ideas?

[JosephTBrdly]

You could just add your archive to Outlook, so moving email to/from it would be just a drag and drop within outlook. Also, you can just drag emails straight from Outlook into a folder. Both Google's and Microsoft's (just haven't checked any others) desktop search clients support searching msg files, and you can preview/open them directly from those if you don't have access to Outlook later.
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.

[ViviBv]

We at one time did add our archive to Outlook and was able to drag and drop within OUTLOOK! THis is what we want! We can't seem to do it again however! Please tell me how again! See my other comment shown later.

[maheshcr]

Definitely useful...

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/

[tnappi]

Wow. Thank god most non-tech people do not read cnet! This article is a legal and compliance managers nightmare. Before any user attempts to start saving items outside their companies existing solution, they should consult their document policies and procedures, including their retention schedules (if they exist). Electronic documents "off the grid" can add significant cost to discovery and open up a company to significant legal risk.

[simelane]

Doesn't Oracle offer an elegant mail system that stores all email content directly into a corporate or local database that can be ready with any query product (e.g. crystal report, microsoft excel, microsoft word, etc.). The Outlook integration is through Oracle Connector for Outlook.

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)

[brentgoss]

You provide too many options and steps that most users will never figure out or use. I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. I have shown many others how I deal with Outlook messages and they all use it successfully and feel more confident that their messages are safe and easy accessible. Here is what I do:

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

[kimaldis]

the article, and most of the comments, are missing one of the fundamental rules of backup; if you require a user to press a button to create his backup you'll be lucky if he does it once a year never mind the once a day or once a week he really should be doing it.

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.

[BobCozzi]

"Moving" vs "Backing up/Archiving" I my view the two actions in this article, produce identical results.

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.

[ballpark97]

This article isn't really about doing Outlook back-ups, but since there are a few comments about back-ups, I need to mention Microsoft's Outlook 2003/2002 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup (pfbackup.exe). The URL is too long, so do a search on Microsoft's web site. This utility prompts you to back up your PST file on a schedule. In the Options, I have the program set-up to back-up my PST file under My Documents. That way, when I back-up My Documents, it includes my E-Mail. In addition, I have a 2nd version of the PST file in case my original gets corrupted.

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.

[rcrusoe]

I agree with tnappi, end users should never be relied upon for backup and/or retention.

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.

[ViviBv]

I hope someone can help me! I have OUTLOOK 2000. WE know how to archive and we (my husband) made another separate archive folder separate from my Personal Folder that I could see and have access to! It sat above my personal folder. Our PC crashed over Christmas. He restored most everything fortunately but we are NOT ABLE to recreate that separate ARCHIVE folder. Actually what happened was when he imported the archive it mixed in w/my personal! I have this HUGE OUTLOOK.PST now (over 600K KB!!). We tried to archive but it placed it where I cannot access it. If we import it it just mixes it in my personal. I read in the help section I can import it into a separate folder but the drop down box will not let me make a separate folder OUTSIDE of my PERSONAL to keep it separate?!!! Thanks to whoever can offer some assistance! IT will be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

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??

[mariyajokes]

PST files typically have a size limit of 2 GB and after that Outlooky starts to stagger and often refuse to download any more messages till it is "cleaned up" or archived and the file size reduced.

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.

[dukeofearl61]

I want to set up a common seachable store in my small company for Outlook emails, all documents and scanned paper items (as searchable OCR text). That's a good reason for needing to move emails out of Outlook that somone questions above.

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 ??

[Deaky36]

I would greatly appreciate some assistance, with clarification of a problem. An important client of mine has recently questioned a fee which he paid us. The fee is in excess of £74,000. He is questioning about 20% of it.
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.

[thepcmdaz]

I'm curious if there is a way to save these outside of outlook in htm or txt format and also bring the attachments.