Hi ALL,



I'm new to Outlook, coming from Win Live Mail (WLM). In WLM to back up my e-mails I could export the e-mails in selected folders to a location on my hard disk and each e-mail was a separate file which you could click on to look at, move or copy as you would like.

First off, is there any way in Outlook to save e-mails within a folder as individual files. The only method of export I've found is either to a single file that holds all the e-mails or as a comma-delimited text file.

On the single file (.pst file) the only way to look at any of the e-mails in it is to import it back to Outlook. But when you do that it wants to put the e-mails back into an existing folder which screws up the current contents of that folder. I know when I was first playing around with Outlook I thought I was able to import the pst file into a new folder without affecting existing folders but I can't seem to do that again.

So can you import a pst file into its own folder?

As for the comma-delim files, yes you can use Notepad or Excel to see the individual e-mails but its not as nice as individual e-mail files (as in WLM) and it seems you cannot export the date field this way.

Any suggestions would be welcome!

Thanks,
Gerry

Here is a link to a post about backing up data files in Outlook:
http://www.thetraininglady.com/backu...-file-outlook/

This will show how to find the PST file and then add it to your backup routine.
If you make a copy of the entire PST file you can obviously save it to a separate location on your computer or a USB drive. If you want to open the file later to access just one email within it, and ensure you do not affect your current email folders, you do this through the File tab and choose Open & Export, then click Open Outlook Data File. Navigate to the file location and select it and click Open. The file SHOULD open as a separate PST file within your email profile and allow you to browse through it and open any of the content. Once you are finished with it simply right mouse click on the Personal Folders listed in the Folder pane on the left and click Close Folders.

Let me know if you are still having issues or need further information.

Hi Belinda,

I am a dummy!! I know when I first installed Outlook (OL) I was able to save a PST file and bring it back into OL as a separate folder. But then I forgot what I did and could only bring it in under an existing folder. I completely missed the option under File to Open an OL file which I used and was able to bring the PST file back into OL as a separate folder and then close the folder when I'm done with it.

Two follow-up questions if you don't mind. When I bring the PST file back into OL (this was a file made from the Export to a File and not the main OL file) there is an extra folder labeled something like Synchronization Folder and there are various files under it all stating that some kind of sync error occurred with a specific folder. Most of them say the error was in the Trash folder but other folders are also mentioned. The earliest file was from a few days ago but that was probably when I made the PST file. What are these folders and how come they don't show up when using OL? (All of these folders are under my Gmail folder.)

The other question is I followed your instructions to find the actual file OL uses for the e-mail and the only thing I found was a file in that location with my primary e-mail addr as its file name but with an ".ost" extension. It still listed as an OL file but OL refuses to open it. Its no big deal as I do a weekly back up and I can simply use Export to make a PST file, but I was just wondering why the main file seems to be an OST file rather than a PST file.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!
Gerry

Q1: If you are connecting to an Exchange server, and I think also if you are using the Hotmail Connector, you may see synchronisation logs. Essentially this log will list any issues it may encounter when synchronising to these types of servers. I used to get them when I was connected to an Exchange server and for the most part they are usually one off issues such as your computer ran into performance problems which caused an issue with synchronisation. If you are concerned about any in particular just google the error message and you should be able to find some possible solutions to the problems.

Q2: An .ost file is still a Personal Folders file in Outlook however this file type is used when connecting to an Exchange server or using the Hotmail connector The .ost provides offline access to these account types. Judging by these two questions having a link I am thinking you are definetley using either an Exchange server connection or Hotmail connector.

I hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions.

Hi Belinda,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!

As far as connecting to an Exchange server or a Hotmail Connector I have no idea if that's what happening. This is a Gmail account that I set up within Outlook. I do know that I had to set an option in the web mail client for Gmail to allow other programs to access that account. So I guess there is something special that has to be done for OL to access the Gmail account and that may be why those sync logs. I doesn't seem to affect the actual usage so it was more of a curiosity question.

Similar, that .ost vs. .pst file is again probably something needed for OL to access the Gmail account. But again its no big deal to create an .pst file whenever I do a backup.

Thanks again for your help!
Gerry

Yes that is what I would assume.