This is the third article in the Simply Put, by Ryn: Microsoft Outlook Tips series. Previous entries:

Today’s topic is only going to cover one thing: how to move your Outlook emails to another file for easy transport to a new or different computer. This is useful if you quit (or are fired/laid off from) your current job and you want to take all your email and contacts with you. Well, now you can. (It’s also useful if you get a new computer, but that doesn’t have the intrigue of getting fired.)

This is Part III (of how many, I still don’t know because the list keeps growing — see Jed’s comment in Color Your Emails – in a series of short articles about Microsoft Outlook).

There’s one thing that makes this topic (as in the topic of today, not Jed’s topic) a bit difficult to write about: it is a slightly different procedure depending on which version of Microsoft Outlook you are running. And to further complicate things, there are many different paths you can take to get to the same destination. In other words, there are few ways to back up your mail to a file. (Wait for it…wait for it…OK! There. Appropriate eye-rolling and all directed at Microsoft.) So before we pick a version and I show you how to move your email, we are going to have a little history lesson (with the help of Wikipedia).

Microsoft Outlook Versions

How many versions of Outlook are there? Well, let’s see:

· Outlook for MS-DOS bundled with Exchange Server 5.5

· Outlook for Windows 3.x bundled with Exchange Server 5.5

· Outlook for Macintosh bundled with Exchange Server 5.5

· Outlook 97 (version 8) released January 16, 1997, also bundled with Exchange Server 5.5

· Outlook 98 (version 8.5) released June 21, 1998

· Outlook 2000 (version 9) released June 7, 1999, also bundled with Exchange 2000 Server

· Outlook 2002 (version 10) included in Office XP released May 31, 2001 Office

· Outlook 2003 (version 11) released October 21, 2003, also bundled with Exchange Server 2003

· Office Outlook 2007 (version 12) released November 30, 2006

Here’s a little known fact (at least I think it is little-known): with the release of Outlook 2003, the official name of Microsoft Outlook became Microsoft *Office* Outlook. Also, probably a more known fact is that after Outlook98, the Outlook for Macs, became Entourage (not to be confused with the HBO series).

Moving Your Mail

I am going to specifically discuss how to move your email to a Personal Folder using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. We are going to pull your mail off of the Exchange server and put it in a Personal Folder that resides on your hard drive, and in turn, you can copy this folder like any other folder. There is one thing you must understand before going forward: I use .pst and Personal Folder interchangeably. They are the same thing.

If you aren’t using Outlook with an Exchange server, your mail is already in Personal Folders, so they are already cleared for transport (although you have to locate them, which is difficult).

Ready? Oookay. (Any of you who were a cheerleader at some time or another will get that reference. If not, oh well…)

From the File menu, select New and then Create Outlook data file.

Create Outlook Data File

Select Office Outlook Personal Folder (.pst).

PST

Rename and save the Personal Folder to your desktop. I called mine Karyns_email.pst. (I know, I know. SUPER original.) Now, keep this in mind. This is the name of FILE – not the name of the folder.

namingfile

Once you name your .pst file and click OK, the Create Microsoft Personal Folder window pops up. On this screen you name the folder, that is, what you will see in your Outlook folder thingy. I named my Gossip. This is where I’m going to store all the emails about any gossip I get about my co-workers. I wouldn’t want to keep that on the server, right?

namingfolder

This brings up an important point. You see, you are only saving the .pst file to the desktop so you can easily copy this folder to another place. BUT, let’s just say you wanted to have some Personal Folders to keep email off the server but you didn’t want to store it on the desktop. In reality, you see, I have a folder called Past Projects. After a project is done, I move all the email associated with that project to my Past Project folder.

I did not save my Past Projects folder to the desktop, but to its default location, as shown below:

location

So, in short, you can save the .pst file any where, but if you are copying your email some where else, it’s good to save it on your desktop because you can easily locate and move it.

Ok, back to Gossip. Once I save Gossip as the name, the folder is now visible in the Outlook thingy (Folder directory?). But the FILE is visible as Karyns_email on my desktop. Do you get it? They are the same thing, really (for us simple-minded).

folder and desktop

Now all you need to do is drag email from My Stuff into the .pst you just created (Gossip). Once it is fully populated, the file (Karyns_email.pst) is ready for transport.

Deleting Personal Folder

If you ever want to delete a Personal folder, right-click the folder and select Close [name of folder]. You might want to make sure it is empty first. Then throw away the .pst file.

Next time: More email information

By the way, every thing you ever want to know about Microsoft Office Outlook is here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/default.aspx . In essence, this site makes the articles I’m writing completely useless (although I’m still going to write a few more.)

This is the third article in the Simply Put, by Ryn: Microsoft Outlook Tips series. Previous entries:

About Karyn: Karyn was given the nickname Ryn when she was 16-years old. (We won’t say how old she is now.) She is the lone technical writer at Network Physics. She has had a life long love affair with ice cream. She will be contributing articles like this one regularly to the site.