From the TechnoManor
An interesting question showed up in my Inbox recently:
“…how can I save all of my emails quickly when there are more than 1000 and
have them available for reopening. I have done a backup of them on my
computer; however, when I try to open them, they do not, as if the computer does
not recognize them, but shows the size. I still have the same program that was
used for receiving the emails originally. I need to have most of them available for
legal purposes.”
This is a tricky one. Unfortunately, I can’t give a clean “how to” to address it. But
maybe I can present some ideas and things to look for to work through the
problem.
This question falls in the area of email management. That is, how we manage all
those messages we’ve accumulated over time. Managing email boils down to:
using what our email tool gives us, and our sense of organization.
Let’s take a look at each category.
Email Tools
There are 2 types of email tools these days: Web-based, and computer-based.
Web-based email tools require a Web browser to access your email (e.g.,
Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari). Examples of Web-based email are Gmail,
Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Verizon Webmail, and so on. Managing your email is very
limited. The email provider maintains custody of all your messages. You can
read them, organize them, send new ones, but you don’t have them.
The messages still live on the email providers’ servers. Therefore, you cannot
save them. The best you can do is to forward them off the Web-based email to a
computer-based email tool.
Computer-based email tools require you to install a program on your computer,
or use one already installed, to access your email. Examples are Apple Mail,
Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Live Mail. The email messages are
stored on your computer. You have greater flexibility about what you can do with
the messages. However, you are still constrained by the program.
Most computer-based email tools are stingy. That is, they want to keep your
messages within the tool. They provide minimal assistance to allow you to get
the messages out of the tool. This includes saving large quantities of email.
Some things you can do from some computer-based email tools:
• Locate and back up the data store. Data store refers to the “blob” or
repository where all the messages are really saved on your computer.
You want to find this data store so you can make a backup.
To locate the data store in Outlook Express: Click Tools, Select
Options, Click the Maintenance tab, then Click Store Folder. The
data store is contained in the named folder. You would copy this
named folder (and all the stuff beneath it) to back up your data store.
Windows Live Mail is similar: Click Tools, Select Options, Click the
Advanced tab, Click Maintenance, then Click Store Folder. The data
store is contained in the named folder. You would copy this named
folder (and all the stuff beneath it) to back up your data store.
To locate the data store in Outlook (called personal folders): select the
head of the personal folders tree (Dave’s Email here)
Right click on this selection
(i.e., on Dave’s Email).
Click Properties for….
Click the Advanced button.
The Filename field contains the name of the data store.
You would copy this file to back up your data store. Outlook allows
you to have many sets of personal folders, so you may have to make
copies of a few more to get all your email.
• Use a backup data store. This process is a little trickier. Again, it will
vary with each email tool.
In Outlook: Click File, Click Open, Click Outlook Data File, navigate
to where you placed the backup data store, then select the data store
file. All your email messages and folders should be accessible.
In Outlook Express: Click Tools, Select Options, Click the
Maintenance tab, Click Store Folder, then Click Change, . Navigate
to where you copied the data store, and select the data store folder.
Click OK. Click OK (again). Click Yes. Click OK. Click Close. Click
OK. Exit Windows Live Mail. The next time you start Windows Live
Mail, you will be using the backup data store. All your email messages
and folders should be accessible.
Windows Live Mail is similar: Click Tools, Select Options, Click the
Advanced tab, Click Maintenance, Click Store Folder, then Click
Change, . Navigate to where you copied the data store, and select the
data store folder. Click OK. Click OK (again). Click Yes. Click OK.
Click OK. Exit Outlook Express. The next time you start Outlook
Express, you will be using the backup data store. All your email
messages and folders should be accessible.
• Export a folder or set of files. Each computer-based tool has a
different interpretation of what this does. Outlook allows you to export
all the messages in one or more folders to a single file (This appears
as an Excel spreadsheet containing all of your email. It looks novel,
but may be of limited value.). Outlook Express exports messages to a
secret place for use by Outlook (which makes it of questionable value).
Windows Live Mail exports all the messages in one or more folders to
a new set of folders on your computer. They are given baffling names
such as 18BE6784-000000C5. While these are readable, you have to
guess at the contents from the name.
• Save individual email messages. Each tool allows you to save an
individual email message. None I examined allow you to save a group
of messages, or they force you to save the group as a single file. So,
saving 1000 messages is not an option.
So, your best bet is:
• Back up the data store to protect your legacy email messages.
• Keep the source media for your computer-based email tool. You will
need this tool to access the legacy email messages. Moving the email
messages to other tools is not reliable.
Email Organization
There are a few things you can do to organize your messages. Having one large
mass of messages in your Inbox can be overwhelming, especially if you need to
preserve information for a long time.
Some things you can do to organize your email:
• Create Folders. Just like managing large amounts of paper, you can
create folders where you put messages. The folders can be named
anything you like (within reason). You can then move a message from
your Inbox to the folder to help you stay organized.
Gmail users: Just to be different, Google’s Gmail doesn’t support
folders. It supports a comparable concept named Labels. You define
a set of labels (I have DCC and DCC Articles). Then you tag a piece
of email with one of these labels. You can ask Gmail to present you
with only those messages having a particular label (e.g., DCC). This
acts just like a folder for organizing your messages.
• Create Filters (also called Rules): These are instructions you give to
your email tool, telling it what to do when it receives email. These
instructions can say something like: “if a new message comes from
theoffice@dccplano.com, move it to my DCC folder.” This would
bypass your Inbox, immediately organizing email from theoffice in my
DCC folder.
Each email tool handles filters differently. Following are a few
examples:
In… Do this…
Windows Live Mail Click Tools,
and Outlook Express Select Message rules,
Select Mail, then follow the prompts
Outlook Click Tools,
Select Rules Wizard, then follow the
prompts
Gmail Click (the very tiny) Create a filter at top of
page, fill in the fields and follow the prompts
Hotmail Click Options,
Click More options (at bottom),
Click Automatically sort e-mail into
folders (under Customize your mail),
Click New filter, then follow the prompts
• Archive old stuff: The more complicated computer-based email tools
(e.g., Outlook), offer an automatic method of scanning all your folders
and culling old messages. This is dubbed archiving. The messages
can be deleted outright, or moved to a separate archive folder. If you
don’t use it, you may want to consult the help information for the tool to
make sure it’s turned off, or doing what you want. Otherwise,
messages may mysteriously disappear from your folders. I use it in
Outlook on my computers to clean out the Deleted, Spam, and a few
special folders.
Note: most of these organizational things can be done from Web-based email
and computer-based email tools.
To summarize: there is no quick way to save a large number of email messages.
If the messages are on a Web-based service, they’re out of your reach. If they
are on your computer, copy the underlying email repository. Move the repository
to a new computer. Install the same email program on the new computer. Point
the email program at the repository. You should now be able to read those
legacy email messages.
It’s not easy, but it’s what you’ve gotta do.
Got a computer question that’s been bugging you? Send it to me at:
frenchygrey@gmail.com
Each week, I’ll answer one in The Link. Hmmm, isn’t the Christmas season
approaching?
Dave Gillen