Learn To Backup Outlook Data To
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Backup Outlook data (i.e. do an Outlook archive) to free up large amounts of disk space. Microsoft Outlook is a great tool for managing email, contacts, schedules and tasks. In fact it is so great that we use it year after year after year without realizing that the files used to store our email, contact, scheduling and task data are becoming bloated.
Here's how you can run a check right now just to see how big your Outlook data file has become. Make sure that Outlook is started up and Right Click on the Personal Folders folder at the top of your Folder List. A window will pop up with a list of things you can do and you need to click on Properties at the bottom of the list. The "Folder Properties" window should pop up on your screen :
By the way, in Outlook 2002 and earlier versions your personal folders file has a limit of 2 gigabytes. You must avoid letting it get over this size as it may cause Outlook to lock up and give you lots of frustration. In newer versions of Outlook the size limit is user configurable (meaning you can decide how big it should get) and the default setting is 20 gigabytes.
About Outlook Backups or Outlook Archive Files
Your Outlook data such as emails, appointments, contacts, notes, tasks and journal entries are kept in a special file called a Personal Folders file or pst file (with the .pst extension). When you backup Outlook data you transfer older data that you no longer need to access from your current pst file to another pst file called archive.pst. You can then copy the archive.pst file to your external storage media to save space on your hard drive and delete the archive.pst file from your internal hard drive.How To Backup (Archive) Outlook Data
Make sure Outlook is started up then click on "File" followed by "Archive..." and the window you can see below will appear.
- Archive all folders according to their AutoArchive settings.
- Archive this folder and all subfolders
There is also a Browse button at the bottom of the window where you can decide where to locate the archive.pst file.
Archive This Folder (Manually Archive Outlook Data)
I tend to use this feature most often as it only requires a couple of simple steps to backup Outlook data. All you need to do is to select the "Archive this folder and all subfolders" button and set the date in the "Archive items older than:" date box and then click on OK.
Make sure you take note of where the archive.pst file is being saved. You can do this by clicking in the "Archive file:" browse box and the path will be selected. You can then paste the path to a Notepad file to keep it safe, for future use.
The main disadvantage of this option is that I have to remember to archive, before my pst file hits the 2 gigabyte limit. It doesn't happen automatically!!
AutoArchive Outlook Data
The AutoArchive feature enables you to customize how you backup Outlook. If you select the "Archive all folders according to their AutoArchive settings" button, this forces an Outlook backup based on settings that you have configured on every single Outlook folder or on all Outlook folders (meaning different settings for each folder, or the same Autoarchive settings for all folders).
AutoArchive settings are set by right-clicking on an Outlook folder, such as an email folder, and selecting "Properties" from the menu that pops up as per the picture to the right.
The "InBox Properties" window then pops up and you have to click on the "AutoArchive" tab after which you will see the following window:
- Do not archive items in this folder
- Archive items in this folder using the default settings
- Archive this folder using these settings
Do Not Archive
If this is selected, then the data in this folder is not included when you backup Outlook.
Use Default Settings
If this is selected, then the default archive settings are applied when you backup Outlook. You can set default archive settings by clicking on the "Default Archive Settings" button which will pop up the following window :
If this is selected, you can set how old data is allowed to get before it is archived. You can also choose whether to have the data backed up to the default archive.pst or whether to have only the data backed up to a seperate .pst file in a different location. You can even give this .pst file a different name (perhaps the name of the folder). Finally, if you know you won't need the data, you can elect to have it deleted when AutoArchive is run.
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