Backup Emails and Contact list of Outlook Express

What happens when you log into your computer system and find that you cannot access your mails on Outlook Express - All your important emails, drafts, appointments, attachments, contact addresses have become inaccessible.

At this point you realize the importance of backing up your emails - Isn’t it?

Outlook Express is the easiest and widely used email client on Windows OS which provides easy options through which you can create backup of your emails and contact addresses.

For the users of Windows 98 - Backup of emails is stored in the Windows directory.

For the users of Windows 2000 and XP - Backup of emails get stored in the Application Data folder. The email client stores emails in the form of .dbx files – Inbox.dbx, Drafts.dbx, Outbox.dbx, Personal.dbx and so on. Every folder added in your account is saved at this location.

Email communication has expanded itself from professionals to home users and thus also faces the situations of corruptions and damages.
Emails easily become corrupted and deleted due to virus attacks, accidental deletions, header corruption of .dbx or .mbx file, damage in the transit, power failure, automatic system shutdown or the mails get permanently deleted from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder.

To avoid the situations of losing important emails, one should always create and maintain backup of the emails and contact addresses. This backup can be created at any location of your computer system or to any CDRW or DVD.

The first and foremost step is to find the actual path where Outlook Express stores the .dbx files. Perform the following steps to locate the .dbx file(s):

How to Backup Emails

1. Launch Outlook Express
2. Click the Tools menu
3. Select the Options option. The Options dialogue box will be displayed.
4. Select the Maintenance tab from the Options dialogue box.
5. Click the Store Folder button. The Store Location window will appear with the path of the folder (Outlook Express), where personal messages are stored.
6. Copy the path and click OK or click Change to modify the location of saving the personal messages.
7. Paste this path in address field of the Windows File Manager. The Outlook Express folder with the .dbx file(s) will be displayed.

The folder has the number of folders which you have created in your mail account. Simply copy these files and paste them to new location or take backup on any other hard disk, CDRW, DVD or on a network drive.

Similarly backup of the address book can also be created and the contact list can be saved from getting corrupt. Perform the following steps to backup the Address Book:

Backup Address Book

1. Launch Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools > Address Book from the drop-down menu.
3. The Address Book – Main Identity (account name) window will be displayed. Complete details of your contact list are displayed in this window.
4. Select File > Export > Other Address Book.. option.
5. The Address Book Export Tool window will be displayed. Select the Text File (Comma Separated Values) option and click the Export button.
6. The CSV Export window appears. Select the desired location to save the exported file and click Next.
7. The window to select the field names of the address book will be displayed. Select the folder name which you want to save and click Finish. On successful completion the Address book export process has completed message will be displayed on the screen.

Now you can view your contact list in an excel sheet-like format from the saved location.

By following such simple steps you can avoid situations of facing loss of emails and contacts but if in any circumstance you lose your mails, you can try the Outlook Express recovery software to retrieve the lost, deleted emails and contact list.

Email Recovery

Internet has become a platform to communicate with friends, colleagues, relatives and unkown people around the world and email communication becomes the premier carrier for the electronic communication between individuals.

Important meetings, announcements, declarations are being discussed through emails without contacting the person. Thousands of emails are sent and received everyday. In professional environment, exchange servers are maintained to handle the number of emails received and sent and also to maintain the security levels in an organization. The chances of emails getting deleted, corrupt and lost in this scenario are increased and people lose their important emails due to this.

The major causes of email files and email boxes getting corrupt or damage are:

· Accidental deletion of emails
· Virus attacks
· Exchange server crash
· Database corruptions
· Mails emptied from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder and header corruption of .IMM, .IMH, IMB,.DBX and .MBX files.

There are certain inbuilt measures in email clients which help to recover mails. The emails of Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook and Incredimail with the help of in-built features can be recovered back effectively.

Email Data Recovery in case of Outlook Express:

Steps to recover mails in Outlook Express:

Ø Open Outlook Express
Ø Click the File menu and select Import > Messages option.
Ø The Outlook Express Import dialogue box will appear. Select the appropriate version of Outlook Express that is currently used by you.
Ø Click Next
Ø A dialogue box will be displayed, select the desired location to which you want to import the mail messages.
Ø Click OK. Outlook Express will again confirm about location of the messages to be imported.
Ø Click Next. The data recovery process will now begin.

Email Data Recovery in case of Microsoft Outlook :

Steps to recover Mails in Microsoft Outlook:

Ø Open Microsoft Outlook
Ø Click the File menu and select Import and Export option.
Ø Import and Export Wizard dialogue box will be displayed. Select the Import From another Program file option.
Ø Click Next. The window to select the file type to be imported will be displayed.
Ø Select the Personal Folder File (.pst) option and click Next.
Ø The Import Personal Folder screen will be displayed, browse the file to be imported and select the Replace Duplicate boxes with items imported option. This selection replaces the duplicate items that are imported.
Ø Click Next. The data recovery process will begin.

Email Data Recovery in case of Incredimail :

Steps to recover Incredimail emails:

Ø Open Incredimail
Ø Click File menu > Data and Settings Transfer > Transfer from Old Computer.
Ø Click OK. The window to select the file to be opened will be displayed.
Ø Select the appropriate file and click Open.
Ø Click OK to start the process of recovery.
Ø A dialogue box indicating the successful recovery will be displayed, click OK to finish with the data recovery process.

The above mentioned steps can be performed in the case of minor corruptions related to the email clients. But in the case of major corruptions, these in-built utilities might not be able to restore and recover the data and other related attachments. In this case you can try Kernel Recovery range for Email - a bunch of email recovery software which effectively recovers and restores deleted email, email attachments, images, appointments, contact addresses, meeting requests, journals, notes, email properties, password protected files and converts OST files to PST files.

Kernel email recovery tools result-oriented recovery of deleted, corrupt, damaged, lost emails by accidental deletions, virus attacks, permanent deletions, lost in transit. The pst repair, outlook express recovery, incredimail recovery, ost file repair software range are the best email data recovery tools in market.