The Hindu Business Line : Backup for e-mails in Outlook Express

I have a P4 machine with 512 RAM. I would like to know how many messages I can keep or store in the `inbox' and `sent box' and how many folders can be created for this purpose. I also want to know if I can keep e-mails as old as three to four years. Is there any backup software available for e-mails in Outlook Express?

Ramesh Sundaram

Technically you can have any number of mails, of any size and age, as long as you have space on your disk to store them. But generally, when an Outlook Express folder gets corrupted, one of the reasons is the size of the folder, either of the inbox or sent items or any folder. The number of the mails is not the concern, but the size of the folder. The bigger the size of the folder, the higher are its chances of getting corrupted.

You can ideally maintain the size of the folders to around 500 MB. If you have folders bigger in size than this, you can move some of the older mail to a different folder, which can be treated as an archive folder, like InboxArchieve2004 and the like.

To find the size of each of your mail folders, please do this: open Outlook Express, go to the "Tools" menu and select "Options." In the dialog box that appears, select the "Maintenance" tab. Now click the "Store Folder" button. A dialog box will display the path where all your mail files are being stored. Please copy the full path and click on the windows Start menu and select Run, paste the path and press enter. The folder will open up. Click on view menu and select Details. You will see the size of each of your mail folders.

For Outlook Express backup, there are some good freeware and shareware. I have listed some here: "Adolix Outlook Express Backup" is one such simple tool to backup your Outlook Express mail. You can download it at http://www.downloadjunction.com/product/store/11535/index.html

The tool offers you wizards for backup, restore and scheduling, it backs up even your mail account settings and mail rules.

One other backup tool is Acubix PicoBackup for Outlook Express at http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwbackup.html This is an advanced backup tool, it has Full and Incremental backup options. You can also have different backup sets. There are also a couple of freewares and sharewares listed in the following site: http://www.downloadjunction.com/product/software/7694/

Please e-mail us at eworld@thehindu.co.in

if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using a computer.

Solution by G. Rajah

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