How to Backup Outlook Email

If you’re not using a web mail client like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, you are probably using a program like Outlook to manage your personal or work emails. In most cases, email is downloaded from your mail server to your computer, so it is important to occasionally backup your email in case there is ever a problem with your PC. It’s not enough to archive it. The files should be transferred to another drive, disk, or preferably an off-site location.

Backup Outlook .PST files

The fastest way to backup your Outlook files is through the Control Panel. Go to Start>Run and type Control Panel and hit enter. Once there, you should see a Mail icon among others. If you do not, click Classic View in the left hand pane.

Double-click the Mail icon and select Data Files or if you have multiple email profiles select Profiles. You will see the path to any archive files and personal .pst files. You can choose to open these by highlighting one and select Open Folders from the right. Copy these files and paste them the location where you want to save them. As a reminder, you should save them to a different PC.

If you ever need to restore these files, you will navigate back to these folders and overwrite files with your backups by copying them into the same folder. You can also choose to export the .pst file via Outlook by clicking File, Import and Export, then Export to File.  Outlook also has a backup plug-in you can install that will help automate  and remind you to backup your email. With this tool, you can set backup reminders and choose a destination folder to save your email backups. Download The Microsoft Outlook email tool here.

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