Outlook Express question

How to remove folders to storage

Published on October 4, 2005 By teddybearcholla In Personal Computing

This morning I tried to save several of my folders in Outlook Express, to my F drive (maxheadroom...extra storage, not physically attached to the harddrive). Long story short, I ended up having them read by notepad, lost all my folders in Outlook Express,to drive F, where I couldn't read them( hit move instead of copy)...please no laughing

!! After a couple of hours of trying to rename the folders, I finally decided to do that system restore, where you can restore your computer to a previous date, therefore removing any stupid mistakes!! Well it worked very well, I now have all my folders back in Outlook Express, and with the correct extension.
I still would like to know, if there is a safe way to copy the folders to Drive F. I receive mail about art, fractals, etc. and each has a folder...but they are quite full...so that is why I wish to save them somewhere else.
Thank you, tbc

Comments

ethsza

on Oct 04, 2005

Hi,

I'm not sure that I fully understand your question, but I try to give you some ideas that might be useful at least.

If you open Outlook Express, and go to Tools -> Options -> Maintenance tab, press Store Folder button, and you can set where OE will look for the mailbox (hmm I mean the lots of *.dbx files, one for each folder).
So if you want to store them on any other drive than C:\ where optimally your OS should sit, you can move them anywhere you like, and tell OE with the above mentioned method where they are.
The default mailbox location is C:\Documents and Settings\{userID}\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{probably random garbage here, but I might be wrong}\Microsoft\Outlook Express.
Smartly enough, your addressbook is stored in a different place - the *.wab file in C:\Documents and Settings\{userID}\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book.
Bear in mind, that if you set it to any other place without moving the Documents and settings sections as well, you're just revealing your inbox to all users of your PC --if there are any. Everything under C:\Documents and Settings\{userID} is only visible to yourself, and the Administrator of course.
So if you consider moving all your "documents and settings" including My Documents, you might want to read this: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_shell_folders.htm

If I understood you totally wrong, and the question was "how to copy the entire OE mailbox" to another place for archiving purposes, than next time select copy instead of move.

Also you might want to consider switching from OE to Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a lot more secure, similarly easy to use (actually there are a couple of more features in Thunderbird which you will love) and the best is, that while installing, Thunderbird migrates your account settings, mailbox and addressbook, so you can immediately start using it.

teddybearcholla

on Oct 04, 2005

Thank you ethsza...sorry my rambling did not help in making clear what I want to do. I have an external hard drive, which I just use for storage...I want to copy my folders from outlook express, save them in my external hardrive, so in case my computer would crash, I would have the important data in those folders for viewing later.

ethsza

on Oct 04, 2005

That's easy, as I said, search for *.dbx and *.wab, and _copy_ (don't move, don't move

) everything to the external hard drive.

teddybearcholla

on Oct 04, 2005

Thank you again ethsza !!

ama02

on Oct 04, 2005

Here's a step-by-step instruction on how to backup your email and address book files, and how to import them later. I believe you could follow the instructions, and then place the backup files onto your F drive...I was able to do that with my D drive (secondary internal drive).

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;270670&spid=2578&sid=78

teddybearcholla

on Oct 04, 2005

Thank you very much,ama02 for the link!!!

_02

on Oct 04, 2005

Barb, here is a link to a program I have been using for over a year. It is fantastic, and will also back up your favorites and IE settings. It is the greatest. It is called Email Guardian. http://www.emailguardian.net/ Smile!

teddybearcholla

on Oct 05, 2005

Thanks Cindi, I'll check that out, also!!! Where did you get that pumpkin!!!!

_02

on Oct 05, 2005

It's an add on pak for my Smileycon prog. It's from the same people that have the email prog. I'm glad I had this on watch cos this is the only way I have been able to reach the site. And DA is just as bad for me today. It never seems to end. Have a great day, my friend!! Smile!

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