Scope
This tutorial takes users through the steps required to backup and subsequently recover their email messages. The backed up data may be restored either in its entirety, or selectively, at the folder level.
The tutorial is applicable to Microsoft Outlook Express 5 and later.
Even users who take the trouble to make regular security backups can overlook an important class of data - their email messages. They have some excuse for so doing, because it's not always self evident where this data is located.
If you have a single hard drive partition, the Outlook Express data will reside in the depths of the My Documents folder. So, if you backup My Documents in its entirety, your Outlook Express messages will be included.
However, if you've sought to separate your user data from Windows and your software applications - either by use of multiple hard drives or multiple partitions on a single hard drive - then it will be less obvious where your Outlook Express data resides. As a consequence, it is be easier to overlook it in a regular security backup regime.
Last Update: Thu Oct 14th 2004