Backing Up Your Exchange/Outlook Mailbox:

 

Why?

If you have an Internet email account at home, you probably have what is known as a POP3 account. In this situation, your email is delivered to a centralized server until such time as you check your email at home. When you check your email at home, the email is removed from the server and it takes new residence on your computer at home. This is significant for when your ISP’s email server does down, your email stays on your computer at home and you don’t know that you’ve lost anything.

 

Your school email account is an IMAPI account. In this situation, your email is delivered to a centralized server where it lives forever and ever until you delete it. When you check your email at a computer, you’re really looking at what is on the server and the mail stays there until you delete it (and delete your deleted items). We do this because many of you share computers and read your email from multiple locations (different rooms, home, etc.). An IMAPI system is also necessary to handle the scheduling and contact abilities some of you utilized.

 

When an IMAPI server crashes, you notice because all of your email (which only exists on the server) will disappear with the server. If you regularly check your email and delete it when done, this isn’t a big deal. However, if you hoard email or keep your appointments and contact information with Exchange/Outlook it is very important that you regularly backup your Inbox.

 

While we do backup the email server nightly, the email on the server is treated as a single, very large, encrypted file, which is tricky to restore (i.e. doesn’t often work). If you backup your email to your home directory (which is also backed up nightly), the result is a much smaller file which is relatively easy to restore (i.e. I haven’t lost a message yet).

 

Backing Up:

 

Export items to a file or to a personal folder file

  1. First of all, make sure you’ve deleted any unwanted email. This should include email in your “sent items” and “deleted items” folder.
  2. On the File menu, click Import and Export
  3. Click Export to a file.
  4. Click Personal Folder File (.pst)
  5. Select “Mailbox – Username” as the folder to export from and make sure that “Include Subfolders” is clicked off at the bottom.
6. Enter is a location and filename for the backup file, click off “Replace duplicates with items exported”
7. Press “Finish”
Restoring from BackUp:

Should the email server crash, and be restored with your Inbox empty, please follow the next steps to restore your Inbox from the backup discussed above.

 

Export items to a file or to a personal folder file

  1. First of all, make sure your in your existing Inbox (though it may be empty).
  2. On the File menu, click Import and Export
  3. Click Import from another program or file
  4. Click Personal Folder File (.pst)
  5. Select your backup file as the “File to import”, make sure that “Replace duplicates with items imported” is selected.
6. Select “Personal Folders” as the “folder to import from:”, make sure that “Include subfolders” is checked off as is “Import items into the same folder in:” “Mailbox – Username”

7. Press "Finish"