Computer Technical Support

What happens when you login to your computer system and find that you cannot access your mail in Outlook Express?

All your important emails, drafts, appointments, attachments, and contact addresses have become inaccessible.

At this point you realize the importance of backing up your emails.

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

For users of Windows 98, a backup of emails is stored in the Windows directory and for the users of Windows 2000 and XP, the emails get stored in the Application Data folder. The email client stores the 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.

Emails easily become corrupt and deleted due to virus attacks, accidental deletions, header corruption of the .dbx or .mbx file, damage in transit, power failure, automatic system shutdown, or the mails get permanently deleted from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder.

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

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

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 the address field of the Windows File Manager (which has been renamed Windows Explorer in Windows XP. It's available by clicking Start -> All Programs -> Accessories.) 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 the new location or tape backup or 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:

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 these simple steps you can avoid the situation of facing the loss of mails and contacts. If in any circumstance you lose your mails, you can try the Outlook Express recovery software to retrieve lost and deleted emails and lost contact list items.