Backup Outlook.com Folder--How?

[ricklev]

I've got more than thirty thousand messages in a Hotmail (or what is now Outlook.com) folder going back almost to the beginning of Hotmail.

Is there any way to backup those emails in case Hotmail screws up.

Thanks for your help!

[JesseFrank]

You can forward all to another email account.

Who keeps 30.000 email messages by the way.

[Sandman77]

During a time where yahoo have only 10 mb space and gmail not existists

I also collect my mails and burned on cd

During long tests

I found out when the outlock file

Was to big often it happens

That mails disappear at inbox at some point!

All the programs should help not does

The job make good

That one with best result

Was import the outlook file into another mailprogramm

Best result I got with the bat!

Good luck!

[NeverSure]

There is a way to download hotmail to a .pst file on your computer but I've never done it. You have to use pop3 rather than IMAP and you don't want the Hotmail Connector.

Scroll more than 1/2 way down the page HERE, past the info on using hotmail connector, and see where it starts the alternative which is "Setup Hotmail with POP3 access."

When you set it up be sure to uncheck the box that says to delete emails on server after download.

This has to download to the .pst file, and it would be interesting to see if Outlook would download the ones that are that old. Theoretically it should download anything it hadn't downloaded before, but...

[ricklev]

There is a way to download hotmail to a .pst file on your computer but I've never done it. You have to use pop3 rather than IMAP and you don't want the Hotmail Connector.

Scroll more than 1/2 way down the page HERE, past the info on using hotmail connector, and see where it starts the alternative which is "Setup Hotmail with POP3 access."

When you set it up be sure to uncheck the box that says to delete emails on server after download.

This has to download to the .pst file, and it would be interesting to see if Outlook would download the ones that are that old. Theoretically it should download anything it hadn't downloaded before, but...

Thanks. There is a little too much in there that I don't understand, so it scares me a bit to attempt it. I guess as long as I set it not to delete the emails I can't screw it up, but.......

[NeverSure]

I would bet that Hotmail has plenty of redundancy in its own backups. These big outfits tend to have several locations for backups in case of a catastrophic event in one spot. They'll even have locations in other countries. I know for a fact that Google does, including in Finland and Belgium. LINK Not all of their servers are replicating the same thing, but they aren't about to lose their data.

What they do, rather than relying solely on backups, is to have real time replicating servers. If the primary goes down, a secondary duplicate is designated to automatically take over as primary. This is why these big companies have almost 100% up time. The switch is automatic and almost instant.

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

PS When I say server of course I mean a large group of servers in a building called a server farm. They are major electricity hogs so they locate where there is surplus electricity for sale. Both Microsoft and Google have bought land on either side of the Columbia River at The Dalles Dam In the US. The dam is owned by the government which leases rights to the power. All leases expired not long ago (50 year leases mostly to utilities) and Microsoft and Google won bids for a lot of power. Google's farm is already running and I was lucky enough to see it, and Microsoft hasn't started one yet.

Edited June 6, 2014 by NeverSure

[rhythmworx]

Go into the far right tab at the top of outlook and click help.

[KittenKong]

Who keeps 30.000 email messages by the way.

The OP does, apparently.

I have nearly double that number myself, and one of the companies I supported had in excess of 1 million emails stored, even after spam filtering.

[KittenKong]

"I've got more than thirty thousand messages in a Hotmail (or what is now Outlook.com) folder going back almost to the beginning of Hotmail.
Is there any way to backup those emails in case Hotmail screws up."

One easy and free way of doing it might be to let Gmail make an online backup of the Hotmail email for you.

http://www.wikihow.com/Switch-from-Hotmail-to-Gmail

Of course you dont actually have to switch to Gmail to do this as you can run both accounts simultaneously and you dont need to use Gmail for anything at all on a daily basis, if you dont want to.

[JesseFrank]

Who keeps 30.000 email messages by the way.

The OP does, apparently.

I have nearly double that number myself, and one of the companies I supported had in excess of 1 million emails stored, even after spam filtering.

So why do people keep that amount of emails. Nostalgia ?

I have maybe close to 1000 mails in my inbox and at least 2/3th is there because I forgot to delete them after I read them or after they were of no use anymore.

The other 1/3th I probably never look at again

[KittenKong]

So why do people keep that amount of emails. Nostalgia ?

I keep mine just in case of legal/liability problems. The companies I supported did the same. The legal requirement is probably 6 years or so, but I find it simpler just to keep everything indefinitely.

I do occasionally get former clients contacting me to ask if I have some information about dates when things were changed and suchlike, and my email records are very handy for this. They rarely ask about things that are more than 3 or 4 years old though.

I doubt I would bother keeping "happy birthday" emails.

[ricklev]

"I've got more than thirty thousand messages in a Hotmail (or what is now Outlook.com) folder going back almost to the beginning of Hotmail.

Is there any way to backup those emails in case Hotmail screws up."

One easy and free way of doing it might be to let Gmail make an online backup of the Hotmail email for you.

http://www.wikihow.com/Switch-from-Hotmail-to-Gmail

Of course you dont actually have to switch to Gmail to do this as you can run both accounts simultaneously and you dont need to use Gmail for anything at all on a daily basis, if you dont want to.

Thanks. I will probably do that also.

I finally discovered directions in a Microsoft Outlook.com forum that sounds like an easy way to backup to a hard copy.

If you want to back up your data you must configure your account on a Mail Client. Follow the steps below to do this:

Download Windows Essentials, it comes with Windows Live Mail, Family Safety, Writer, Outlook Connector pack, Microsoft SkyDrive. When you download Essentials, you can choose custom install to install only Windows Live Mail depending on your preference.

Windows Essentials

Once Windows Live Mail is installed and configured, just sign in to your account and wait for the program to download your emails. When finished downloading you should have an exact copy on your Hard Drive.

[jimmybkk]

I don't know exactly how it works if you set up Hotmail through Outlook. Have the emails all been downloaded? Or are you just viewing them on the Hotmail web server using the Outlook interface? In other words, if you start up you're computer with no Internet connection can you read all of your old emails? If you can then they are already downloaded onto your PC and so it should be quite straightforward to export them as an Outlook Data File (.pst) and save them wherever you want - external hard drive, another computer, in the cloud etc...

I don't know what version of Outlook you're using but on Outlook 2013 you click File > Open & Export > Import/Export, then select Export to a File and click Next. Select Outlook Data File (.pst) and click Next. It should then show a box with your email address at the top followed by a list of all the folders: Inbox, Sent Items etc. and asking you to select the folder you want to export from. If you click once on your email address to highlight it all the folders will be exported. Click Next, choose a file name and a location to export to and click Finish.

If you can't see any emails without an Internet connection then obviously this won't work and sorry to have wasted your time...

[ricklev]

Thanks. I never configured Outlook in Windows 7, bit I will give it a try.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

[KittenKong]

Thanks. I never configured Outlook in Windows 7, bit I will give it a try.

If you have Outlook installed then you dont need to follow the Windows Live Mail procedure that you quoted earlier.

But JimmyBKK appears to understand that you are using Outlook rather than Outlook.com, which I dont think is the case (Outlook.com is merely the new and very confusing name for HotMail).

MS deserve a medal for inventing confusing and ultimately pointless new names for things.

[JesseFrank]

Thanks. I never configured Outlook in Windows 7, bit I will give it a try.

If you have Outlook installed then you dont need to follow the Windows Live Mail procedure that you quoted earlier.

But JimmyBKK appears to understand that you are using Outlook rather than Outlook.com, which I dont think is the case (Outlook.com is merely the new and very confusing name for HotMail).

MS deserve a medal for inventing confusing and ultimately pointless new names for things.

MS deserves to get a medal for the most stubborn email provider ever.

My hotmail got blocked by them 2 years ago because it got comprised and spam was sent to all my contacts. I have never since been able to recover my account.

I thought I got it today when I started a "someone else is using my account " procedure. I was asked if they should send a code to my hotmail address or my gmail address, which gave me hope.

I received the code, entered it in the log in window, then got a message that someone else might use my account. Again I was offered a security code to reset my password, only this time I only got the option to have it sent to my hotmail address, to which I can't log in since 2 years

Then started the game with the webform where you have to answer your secret question, give your birthday, enter email addresses you have mailed and more crap, but still it says that they can't verify me as the account holder.

All my hotmail was forwarded to my gmail account, so they should be aware of it that when I use that account that I'm the account holder, but no. FK hotmail

[sustento]

I use Mailstore Home (free) to backup my Gmail accounts. I've never tried it with Outlook but it seems to be able to back up all sorts of stuff so you might as well give it a go. If it works you'll have a fully searchable copy of all your emails on your own PC.

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home-email-archiving.aspx

[Bpuumike]

You can forward all to another email account.

Who keeps 30.000 email messages by the way.

It's a great way to store things, especially before the 'Cloud' concept came along.

[jimmybkk]

Thanks. I never configured Outlook in Windows 7, bit I will give it a try.

If you have Outlook installed then you dont need to follow the Windows Live Mail procedure that you quoted earlier.

But JimmyBKK appears to understand that you are using Outlook rather than Outlook.com, which I dont think is the case (Outlook.com is merely the new and very confusing name for HotMail).

MS deserve a medal for inventing confusing and ultimately pointless new names for things.

Sorry - KittenKong is absolutely right. I totally misread the post and misunderstood the OP's situation.

So anyway, I just tried adding a hotmail account to my MS Outlook 2013. Gotta say it was the simplest set up I've ever experienced. Just had to enter my hotmail address and password and the rest took care of itself. I didn't have any options to choose POP3 or IMAP, it automatically set up something called an Exchange ActiveSync account. All my emails downloaded as soon as the account was set up and I just went offline to test it and sure enough i could access all of them when offline also.

I could then also export all emails to a .pst file following the same procedure as in my previous post.