Internet Explorer / Outlook Express, how to save user data?

[Felix]

I try to switch to IE 5 / OE 5. One thing I loved with Netscape 4.72 was the easy way to backup my user settings:

- All and every settings were saved in c:\program files\netscape\users
- the bookmarks (aka favorites) are a compact bookmarks.htm file.
- the emails are a proprietary database in the \mail subfolder
- The cookies are in a compact cookies.txt file.


Ok, I assume half of the settings are hidden saved in the registry. But I would like at least to save
-> my email files
-> my favorites
-> my cookies.

How can this be done?

Any help is highly appreciated. THX

[was_smart]

-> my favorites
-> my cookies.

You can copy these directly from your c:\windows directory if you are using Win9x. There should be folders there named Favourites and Cookies. Just copy these folders and voila! you have copied your favourites and your cookies.

-> my email files

This can be a bit tricky. Do this:

1) Within Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options
2) Within Options, click on the Maintanance Tab
3) You will see a button there "Store Folder"
4) Click on there
5) Specify a new location
6) This is where your new msgs will be saved

Hope this helps!

[Roberto]

I find this to be an interesting topic. It seems to me that outlook express does not make it easy to store data files in a manner that is easily accessable. For example, I have many important emails from different sources that I have placed into different folders. After several years some of the folders have become quite large. Over time, I image they will become unmanagable. It seems to me that there should be some way to archive a year of email for each folder so that they are no longer part of the active files and yet easily available for reference.

In addition, as outlook express evolves it may no longer recognize data files from older versions of outlook or I may wish to change to another email program. So, the archived data should, in my opinion, be saved as text files so that they can be accessed by any editor program.

Does anyone have recommendations on how to easily archive the folders -- preferably as text files?

[was_smart]

Roberto,

You can archive folders in Outlook Express 5. Select the folder you wish to archive, then from the
file menu select > folder > Compact Now

instead of Archives, Microsoft uses the word Compact, atleast in outlook express it does.

You can search on help for more information on archiving folders.

But, yes I would have to agree with you that Microsoft does a very lousy job of email management.

[Felix]

Thank you guys, will try this tomorrow.

I forgot one thing: How to save the adress book?
(In Netscape it's just the Abook.nab file)

[was_smart]

How to save an address book in Outlook Express:


On the File menu, point to Export, and then click Address Book.


Choose a format for the export. To export your address book directly from Outlook Express, choose Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book. To use a file with address information separated by commas, select Text File.

Click Export.

[Roberto]

was_smart

So, for example, if I want to archive all of the files that were sent to me from "my boss" in 1999, I would perhaps create a folder called "1999 from my boss" put all of his email in that folder and then run compact.

Now, if I later would like to refer to a specific email that has been compacted would I then need to run a program to uncompact the entire "1999 from my boss" folder?

[Felix]

Thank ya guys for the help. Learned something new.


Roberto,

I experimented a bit. Ummmm... Actually it is a bit different: "Compact" will compactify the outlook express email database, i.e. physically remove deleted emails. Thus the database will be smaller, aka compact.

Outlook Express Help says: To backup your emails do a search for *.dbx files and copy them to a safe place. (1 dbx file for each email folder) To restore them, copy the dbx folder back.

[was_smart]

Roberto:


>So, for example, if I want to archive all of the files that were sent to me from "my boss" in 1999, I would perhaps create a folder called "1999 from my boss" put all of his email in that folder and then run compact.

Yes, that right.



>Now, if I later would like to refer to a specific email that has been compacted would I then need to run a program to uncompact the entire "1999 from my boss" folder?

I tried this out and actually you can read email from a compacted folder just as you would from a normal folder. There is no need to "uncompact".

Now, I gave you this answer because you asked of archiving messages in outlook express, I checked under help in outlook express under archiving messages and it showed how it is done using the Compact feature. Am I really sure it is actually "archiving messages"? No I am not

Like I said before, Outlook Express does do a lousy job at message management.

[Pakrat]

Hi Felix. I have different approached on this. Click on File and click on export. You have two choice (address book and Messages) you can pick your choice and point to folder where you wants to save and click okay. Then you can go to a new PC and choose import, point it to the file location. That's easier. On my machine, I have a little bit over 24 hundred e-mails in my inbox. Takes about 7 seconds to get going. But that's the draw back.

[was_smart]

Import / Export is easier as Pakrat said.

I would be very careful though, make sure you *have* the exact same version of Outlook Express when Importing, otherwise you will not be able to import.

[Felix]

Thank you all for the input.