Backup Your Email
Imagine this:
You have your email all set up, organized with folders and your address book is finally completed. You have all of your necessary information for various web sites, help files and financial information stored in folders. You have your calendar set up to remind you of important dates, birthdays, appointments, etc. All of a sudden your computer crashes. Oh no! You reboot your computer and Windows won't load. Everything you try doesn't work. In a panic, you call a computer tech. After the tech looks at your system he tells you he'll have to reinstall Windows. So Windows is reinstalled. Now you open your email program. There's nothing there! You have to start all over again. All of your email address are gone. Some of the addresses you will never recover. Your messages so carefully saved are all gone. Disaster!
Now imagine this: You open your email program after a complete reinstall of Windows, click on File, Import, Address Book, a window opens and asks Import from where, and you tell it to import from your back up. Voila! Your address book is as before. You then follow the same steps to import your inbox, etc, and your entire email is as before.
Which scenario do you want?
How to create a Backup folder
Go to Programs and select 'Windows Explorer'. (Figure 1 on side panel) In Windows Explorer right click with your mouse anywhere on a blank space and select 'New' from the popup menu. Select Folder. Rename the new folder ' OE Backups' (without the quote marks). Save all of the files you export from Outlook Express to this folder. (See Figure 2 on side panel)
To backup your Outlook Express Address Book use the Export in the file menu. (Figure 3 on side panel)
Open the file menu in Outlook Express and select Export, the Address Book. Highlight Text file (Comma separated Values) (Figure 4 on side panel)
Type AddressBook.wab in the CVS Export window and click the Browse button. Scroll through the list until you find the Backup Folder, select the folder & then click next. (Figure 5)
Put a check mark in any boxes that do not have a check if you want those fields to be saved. (Figure 6 on side panel)
Your address Book is now saved.
Now change the location of where Outlook Express stores your messages. Make a new folder in your Documents and name it OE Store.
Open Outlook Express and select Tools/Options. Click on the Maintenance tab and then click Store Folder. Click Change and browse to the new folder you just created (OE Store). Close Outlook Express and reopen Outlook Express. Check the new folder to make sure all of the files are now in the folder. Now copy the entire folder named OE Store to OE Backups. Your messages are now saved.
IMPORTANT!
After you have completed exporting your address book and saving your OE
Store to a backup folder, you must save the files to a location not on your
C drive. If you have a separate partition on your hard drive, you can create
the new folder on this partition & you are fairly safe. A much better
solution is to save your backed up files to some sort of removable media
like an external drive or burn them to a CD. If your hard drive completely
fails you still have your backups. Remember to make a backup on a regular
basis to avoid losing email you need to keep.
To import your Address Book & messages click on File, Import & follow the prompts. Hint, when you import your messages to a new copy of Outlook Express, be sure you select the Import from a Store folder option.
A Program to backup Outlook Express, 'OEBackup'.
From Microsoft: How to Back Up and Recover Outlook Express Data
Outlook Express Backup Genie This program, Outlook Express Backup Genie, can save emails, address book, settings, mail and news accounts, message rules, blocked senders lists and signatures to a single, compact, compressed backup file that can be easily restored when necessary.
How to Backup Outlook Express, Address Book, Mail Rules and Other Settings, a cool page on PC Hell's site. But be careful, some of this requires editing the Registry, not recommended for beginners!