Backup Microsoft Outlook 2007

I was asked today by a friend how to backup and restore Outlook 2007 data, such as personal folders, rules, alerts, and other account information (also known as Identities). I’ve never been able to figure out how to backup the Identities, but here are the details on how to backup everything else.

In Outlook 2007, you can export your PST files (personal file folders)…
1. Click on “File”, then on “data file management”

2. click “open folder”, then copy/paste the contents to your backup location.

You can also use this method,
1. Click on “File”, then “Import and Export”

2. Click “export to a file”, then click “personal file folder”

3. highlight “personal file folders”, and check “include subfolders”

4. tell it where to save the PST file, then click finish, and let it do it’s thing.

To export/import your Rules and Alerts…
1. Click on the “Tools” menu, then “Rules and Alerts”

2. Click “Options”, then “import” or “export”, and tell it where to save the file.

For the Identities, I’m not sure where that information is located, I’ve never had much luck in researching that. If I find out, I’ll be sure to post it here.

There is a tool that do all of this automatically, though it doesn’t always work. It is called  “Amic Email Backup“.

Spam Management

According to Tech Guy Labs:

“The longer you use an email, the more SPAM you will get. The easier your email is “guessable” by spambots, the more spam you’ll get. The more listserves you’re with, the more SPAM you’ll get. Leo, for instance, gets over a million spams a month!

Leo’s 3 stages for Spam management:

1) use an external service. Leo uses MailRoute.net. There’s also onlymyemail.com. These are for pay services that block out spam.

2) Use Spam Assassin on your server.

3) Finally, a local solution like Mail Washer.”

Another option, when using services like Hotmail or Yahoo, in recent years, have spam-catching services that seem to catch most, if not all, spam or junk email. You can also have the junk email filter spam to specific folders. Microsoft Outlook has similiar options. You can also use a Junk Email Senders List, and filter to specific folders as well.

In Outlook, right-click email, choose “Junk E-Mail”, and “Add to Blocked Senders List”. From that point on, Outlook filter those emails to the Junk Mail folder. You can also right-click messages and “Create a Rule”, so the message is automatically filtered to the folder you designate.

Using Outlook to Access web-based Email

You will need a paid email account from Yahoo or Hotmail

Go to the mail settings and you should get POP information

Enter the POP information into Outlook and you’ll be able to access the email from Outlook.

There are free programs that are available that will allow you to access Hotmail or Yahoo, but they’re finicky in that they sometimes work, and sometimes don’t. One such example is YPOPs from www.ypopsemail.com, though it doesn’t always work.

Hotmail support is built into Outlook, but only works with Hotmai accounts created before 2004, and it’s hit-and-miss. Hotmail currently has no stable way, paid or otherwise, to access it from Outlook or any other client. You must go to the website to check your email, which is rather silly. 

POP3 access is not free with the US version of Yahoo Mail, but it is with the Canadian version at http://mail.yahoo.com. If you have an account with the US version, you can forward it to your Canadian Yahoo account. For Yahoo Canada, the send and recieve information for the incoming is ‘pop.mail.yahoo.ca’, and the outgoing is ‘smtp.mail.yahoo.ca’.

To access your Account Settings in Outlook, click on the ‘Tools’ menu and choose ‘Account Settings’ to review the information.

Enable Images in Outlook

In Outlook 2003:

1.	Start Outlook.
2.	On the Tools menu, click Options.
3.	Click the Security tab, and then click Change Automatic Download Settings.
4.	In the Automatic Picture Download Settings dialog box, click to clear the Don’t download pictures or other content automatically in HTML e-mail check box.
5.	Click OK two times.

 In Outlook 2007:

1. Click on “Tools”, then “Trust Center”

2. Click on “Attachment Download”

3. Uncheck the box next to “don’t download images automatically…”

Outlook rules stopped working

You can run them manually if they no longer run automatically. You may be able to fix the problem with the following command, but you may lose your rules in the process.

outlook.exe /cleanprofile

source: techguylabs.com

Here’s another method from techyforums.com…

If your rules have stopped working or are working inconsistently then it could me due to a corruption in your data file. Luckily there are a couple of built in tools that should be able to fix this problem.

Browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033 and there should be to exe’s:

• scanpst.exe
• scanost.exe

Close down Outlook and make sure that any Outlook processes are also closed then put the above exe’s one at a time.

Delete all items in Outlook Calender

Warning  The following steps will delete all items in your calendar, including holidays that are automatically added to the calendar. You can re-add or remove holidays deleted during these steps, but your other items will be unrecoverable.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Calendar.
2. On the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, and then click By Category.
3. Click Categories: (none), and then press CTRL+A.
4. All items in the list should now be selected.
5. Press DELETE.
s: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010955511033.aspx

Disable Preview Pane in Outlook

(may vary slightly by version)

You can change your default view by going to
View-> Arrange By-> Current View-> Define Views…
Here you can edit the default Messages view. Since modifying this view
doesn’t effect the folders you already have modified I recommend defining a
new view and apply that view on first use of the folder.

If you want to only disable the Preview Pane in individual folders, make sure the folder is selected. Go to ‘View’, then ‘Preview Pane’, and choose ‘off’.

source: groups.google.com