Alternative to pst

[crazychicken]

I am trying to backup outlook 2003, but if I make a pst that has to be manually done and it is just 1 big file, so incremental backup doesn't make any sense. Is there a better way to use a backup system with outlook?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[tomt4535]

Are you using an exchange server or just a pop3 server or something like that?

 

[crazychicken]

Just pop3. I just have several folders that I move mail into from the inbox after downloading with pop3. How do you suggest backing it up? Outlook express has a folder full of files that you can just backup just as if it was a documents folder. I haven't found a way to make outlook work like that?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[lxskllr]

I'm not familiar with Outlook, but maybe try poking around in your hidden user directory. It's putting the files in 1 place somewhere. If you find that, you can backup the whole directory.

 

[crazychicken]

I think it may be a bit touchier than that - Outlook likes to have things the way it wants it so I'm not sure just backing up a folder like that will work - but I don't know what I'm talking about either. Can anyone confirm/deny this is an ok way to go about this?

Dave

 

[Nothinman]

Outlook has an AutoArchive option.

 

[crazychicken]

ok , so you auto archive... then how do you backup to an external drive?

 

[Nothinman]

You have something else backup the PST that autoarchiving creates.

 

[crazychicken]

ok so auto archiving creates one big pst, or a different one each time you run it? Then how do you restore it in the event of a crash? It sounds easy in theory (click "restore" or "import" or whatever it is), but I've tried it multiple times and there are always problems... ( it creates 2 sets of personal folders, etc)

Has anyone actually done this and written a nice tutorial or anything?

Dave

 

[Nothinman]

Personal Folders are just how a mounted PST shows up in Outlook, every time you mount one you'll get another set of Personal Folders in Outlook. From there you can drag mail back and forth.

I really don't remember much about how it names the created the PST, you have Outlook so why not just try it out

 

[takeru]

it just names it like archive or backup and defaults to where your user profile is, like for me:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\backup.pst
you can change the location of where to create it, and name it. if you blow up and need to restore, use import/export feature in outlook. or just open the pst file also. it'll mount itself as a separate tree.

btw, i think you see two sets of personal folder since the default always has one there, and the default name of the pst you create is named that as well. you may have just left the default name when you created it, thus seeing two now.

 

[Blazer]

there is another way, change the default location for oe store folder, right click that folder and paste into another location, works in vista as well.

 

[crazychicken]

this is outlook, not outlook express (OE)

Also, we've missed the point about how backing up the pst file does not allow for incremental backups, as the pst file will have changed each time, forcing the multi-gig file to be copied in its entirety (instead of the idea of "incrementally").

Thoughts?
Dave

 

[Blazer]

sorry, i thought oe, gb's would be a prob.