mycapsules/_posts/2008-08-02-new-to-outlook-take-one-backing-up.md

---
layout: post
title: 'New to Outlook: Take one--backing up'
created: 1217635932
categories:
- apps
- outlook
---
<p><img height="140" alt="image" src="http://mycapsules.com/sites/default/files/2008/08/outlook-fight.png" width="163" align="right" border="0" />Like most people out here, I'm not really a fan of Microsoft Outlook since I know how big, fat, and sluggish it is. I used to ask ones that use Outlook regularly why you have to use and how you live with it. The answer I always got, unsurprisingly, is they didn't know either whether they had another choices or they need to use it with an Exchange account.</p>
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<p>Either ways, that's what I have to deal with also; many of my clients want to get things done in their own ways. In other words, using in the same--familiar--environment. Although they want to speed thing up, learning new things--like switching from Outlook to Thunderbird--is much less productive--than slow Outlook that they used to. Thus, the way to improve overall speed &amp; performance is not that much--yes, one way is doing clean installation, but it just normally scares people when talking about this. Tweaking all configuration &amp; clean all messes should be preferred path in any cases. </p>  <p>In order to fix any possible problem which might occur, the best way is to be with it--understand it--by myself. Therefore I could get the most from it. I will write a series of switching to Outlook based on my usage--normally with Thunderbird. You'll see, in the end, if Outlook is worth switching from Thunderbird in my scenario.</p>  <p>From what I have experienced, most of my clients have &gt;4GB mailbox with Outlook and it ran really slow. More and more stuffs makes things slower; it's just the fact, we couldn't do anything about it. What we might try to alleviate this problem is separating the big file into smaller pieces. It's sadly that I still could find the way to separate an Outlook file in case we are using on multiple machine. If you are using on a single machine, there is a good way to do this =) As you will see later on.</p>  <p>Nonetheless, the first important thing we should have done with Outlook is backing up! It would be great if you know that you would never lose all your important archives--thousands of e-mail in Outlook specifically. This leads to the take one: all about backup and file location of Outlook.</p>  <p>For the traditional way, you can use import/export feature in Outlook which is a straight forward. Anyone could do that. However, this feature is not really built-in (from/to another format, besides .pst)--some might not able to do this without an install disc. So, an alternative will take this role--just find its source and copy it!</p>  <p>Basically, Outlook data has 2 main parts: mailbox &amp; auto-complete e-mail list.</p>  <p>1. <strong>Mailbox</strong> -- Outlook will separate file by mail folder. For example, it always has Personal Folders--this stores in &quot;outlook.pst&quot; file as a default. If you have an archive, it will be &quot;archive.pst&quot; or if you have IMAP account, it will be each file (.pst) for each account too. All this will store in:-</p>  <blockquote>   <p>%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook <em>or</em> C:\Users\&lt;username&gt;\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook <em>or</em>       <br />C:\Documents and Settings\&lt;username&gt;\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook</p> </blockquote>  <p>While the first one is of Vista and the latter is of Windows XP. %localappdata% varible is only valid in Windows Vista though.</p>  <p>2. <strong>Auto-complete e-mail list file</strong> -- this might be the vital stuff for some people. It is stored in Outlook.NK2 file, but in different place which is</p>  <blockquote>   <p>%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook <em>or</em>       <br />C:\Users\&lt;username&gt;\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook <em>or</em>       <br />C:\Documents and Settings\&lt;username&gt;\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook</p> </blockquote>  <p>%appdata% variable can be used in both Windows XP and Vista in this case; which gives you a different location by each OS--<em>AppData\Roaming\ for Vista</em> and <em>Application Data\ in XP</em></p>  <p>If you keep these files safe, you will have no worry at all!</p>  <p><a href="http://mycapsules.com/sites/default/files/2008/08/scanpst.png" alt="click to see more detail"><img height="75" alt="image" src="http://mycapsules.com/sites/default/files/2008/08/image_thumb_1.png" width="83" align="right" border="0" /></a>In case you find the popup, </p>  <blockquote>   <p>The data file 'Personal Folders' was not closed properly. The file is      <br />being checked for problems.</p> </blockquote>  <p>You may take a look at

<p>So far, you are not likely to lose your data. Then we will talk about how to use it in the next part!</p>

In brief, Outlook has good solutions enough comparing with Thunderbird. It might not cover every settings like backing up Thunderbird profile's folder, but it's up to par in my opinion. Thus, <em><strong>Outlook 1, Thunderbird 1</strong></em> in this round.