How to Back Up Outlook 2007 Email on a Network Server

Protecting important email from customers doesn't have to be a difficult or expensive process.

Many small businesses rely on email from customers and contacts to maintain a clear picture of the overall customer relationship. Valuable information can be lost if a user's hard drive fails. Hosting the Outlook files on a network server can be implemented fairly quickly and lessens the likelihood that these emails would be lost.

Instructions

1. Launch Microsoft Outlook 2007. Under the "Tools" menu, choose "Account Settings..." This will open a new window that displays the email accounts for the user and also several tabs. Select the "Data Files" tab. Under the column labeled "Filename," note the names and locations all files on the local hard drive. In most cases, these files will be named, "Outlook.pst" and "archive.pst", but may have different names as assigned by the user. Also, there may be multiple archives depending on how long the email account has been in use. Close the Outlook 2007 program.

2. On the network server, create a shared folder for the user if one does not already exist. This folder may be named after the user or may be assigned an ID number that is associated with the user. Assign permissions that allow the user and also the system administrators full control of this folder. Under this main folder, create a subfolder with a name like "Outlook Mail Files." On the user's PC, create a drive mapping to this folder and open it in a new window.

3. Open the folder containing the user's .pst files on the local hard drive. If the folder is not visible, select the "Tools" menu at the top of the window and then select "Folder options..." Click the "View" tab and then select the radio button beside "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" and then press the "OK" button. This will make the folder visible and selectable. Position the window with the Outlook .pst files on-screen along with the "Outlook Mail Files" folder that was created under the mapped user drive. Move all of the .pst files over to the user's folder on the server.

4. Launch Outlook 2007 again. A message will appear stating that Outlook cannot locate the files. It will prompt for the location of the "Outlook.pst" file first. Browse to the user's mapped drive and select that file. Next, Outlook will request the location of the archive files. They should be in the same folder; select them. Close Outlook 2007.

5. Relaunch Outlook 2007. Verify that all of the user's folders and emails are intact.

Tips & Warnings

• Use archiving regularly to keep the file size of Outlook.pst as small as possible in order to improve performance.

• Perform routine back-ups of all users' files on the server to minimize the effects of a hard drive failure.