A real challenge for the computer experts...

[Queton]

I’ve figured out how to back up all my work emails on an external hard-drive
(to take home), however, it dumps 3 yrs of emails into one folder. When I
open the folder all of the emails are listed and organized by the “subjectâ€
and no longer in any type of useful order. So I have hundreds of emails
clustered together by the title “RE: …†but I can’t tell which ones are
recent and which are 3 years old without clicking on each email.

In attempt to gain a little more order, I created folders for each month of
each year and dumped those emails into the proper folders. Still, this
requires wasted time hunter for particular emails. There must be a better
way!

Question: Is there any way to save all of the emails to the hard-drive with
each file having a name other than the “subject†(e.g., “dateâ€, “senderâ€, or
even all three)? If not, is there a more organized way to get 3 yrs of
emails backed up on a hard-drive?

Thanks!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Why are you storing everything in separate files?
Which mail account are you using?

See http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Might want to start with exactly what you "figured out." You have told us
nothing, we have no idea what you are doing, we can't read minds, and you
apparently haven't figured out what needed to.

 

[Queton]

Sorry, I tried to make the message brief. I'm using Outlook 2003. I tried
storing all emails in personal folders so they were backed up on outlook.
Then, to copy them to an external hard-drive I simply copied and pasted the
emails on the external hard-drive. I want to be able to take the hard-drive
home and access the emails from home. That worked out fine - there are
individual files for each email and if I want to read them I simply double
click on each file. The problem, however, is that the emails aren't
organized by date and many of the files have similar or useless (e.g.,
"RE:....") b/c the name is simply the "subject line" of each email.

Does that clarify my question a little better?

 

[Pat Willener]

There are many ways to backup PST files, and some can have very
undesirable results. The best way is to just copy the entire PST file
(while Outlook is closed), or use a backup tool such as Windows Backup,
Acronis, or even compress it into a ZIP file.

Nothing like what you describe will happen if you use correct backup and
restore methods.

N.B. Backup/Restore and Export/Import are *not* the same!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

A bit but since you left out the mail account type being used it is still
hard to make any recommendation although all scenarios are covered in the
link I gave you. I suggest you start reading there.

The main thing you went wrong in is that you saved everything as separate
files. Just copy the single pst-file.

 

[Queton]

Thanks for the advice. I looked into copying entire pst-files before, but
didn't know it would save everything. We are using multiple accounts - a
university exchange account, hotmail, etc... The other problem was I am
actually doing this for my advisor and she won't know how to load the
pst-file once she gets it home. I thought if she could open each file from
the folder it'd be easier. I'll just have to go to her house and teach her
there.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

File-> Open Outlook Data File...
Do you really have to visit her at home for that? ;-)