Thank you for helping!

I am sorry, but i am going to have to ask you to use little words in big font and as many pictures as possible... Yes, that is an exaggeration, but as i tried this once before and was not successful i must be tripping over something obvious to the community but to which i am blind.

I am using classic Outlook. Up until yesterday when i read the We are raising 365's annual cost by 30% type email, i was running the Outlook that came with Office/MS 365 subscription, for which i turned off autopayment. Yesterday i installed Microsoft Office 2024 Professional i thought (I first deleted all 365 then ran the installation package) though now when i look at Office Account the page shows:

Product Information
Microsoft
Subscription Product for <my email address>
Microsoft 365
This product contains...

And so perhaps they are just letting the present subscription run out (Oct. 22nd).

Phase 1:

I want to take local possession of ALL my emails on the server. When i look at the history of emails in several folders they only go back to May 15, 2023. I don't care if copy remains on the server, but i do want the full history locally.

Phase 2:
Once i have everything locally i want to transfer specific folders to a second file - archiving, but i fear to use the word "archiving" might mean a specific procedure within Outlook whereas i wish to mean "moving or transferring data to another location so it is no longer within the original working file, but can be loaded independently and prior information read if need be". I do not want that file cluttering up my working copy, i simply want that file so if i ever need some historic piece of information i can switch to that file, record the information, then switch back to the operating file.

It is possible i am making this harder than it needs to be. The wish to do so comes from my losing all the emails i once had with Thunderbird prior to roughly 2015 due to my not archiving, and moving too fast without brain cells keeping pace.

I have tried Menu Item File | Open & Export | Import/Export | Import from another program or file | Outlook Data File (.pst) | ... Then i open that data file from Outlook and it appears to be the same thing i am staring at - nothing new that might be stored on the server.

Quite honestly, i ALWAYS work from the Outlook client on my computer. When i opened up the web interface and looked at the oldest dated email for the same folders i ran into the same date. I am now questioning if i did something stooooopid that blew away everything prior to May 15, 2023. I would hope not, but having dealt with others and also knowing myself, it is always a possibility i must consider.



Any nice an easy instructions (See the keyboard. The nice keyboard. The nice black keyboard"...) are appreciated!.

I thank you very much for considering my issue and putting up with my rambling. To add to the latter, last week i had one eye's lens replaced (the other gets done tomorrow) so i am trying to work with two eyes having significantly different focus. Who needs drugs when you can mess yourself up like this?

Respectfully,
Bruce

-- i installed Microsoft Office 2024 Professional

I am not aware of a "Professional" version of Office 2024. Only:

Office Home & Business 2024
Your request has been blocked. This could be due to several reasons.

Office Home 2024
Your request has been blocked. This could be due to several reasons.

I will assume you mean "Office Home & Business 2024".

-- when i look at Office Account the page shows [MS 365]

I've seen this before. Try the steps in this Microsoft Q&A topic first. If that doesn't work come back and we'll try something else.

Purchased Office Home 2024 but still shows as Office 365 - how to fix this permanently? - Microsoft Q&A

-- [emails] only go back to May 15, 2023

See "Change how much mail to keep offline in classic Outlook" in
Work offline in Outlook - Microsoft Support

Once you have all of your email locally, then using Export to a PST file should get you a "backup" copy. But you don't want to Import the PST to check it, you just "Open" it in Outlook.
Open and close Outlook Data Files (.pst) - Microsoft Support

Thank you, i will give it a try very soon!

Probably some marketing nonsense i noted as to version-