In this article, we will teach you that before deleting Outlook email messages, make a backup copy in case you want to recover the information contained in your Outlook or Hotmail email. We will also show you how to restore those copies. And finally, we’ll talk about how often you should back up all your data.
How to backup your Outlook or Hotmail email
Microsoft gives all Outlook and Hotmail users the opportunity to back-up all the information they store within these email services.
To access this feature, you must use the desktop version of Microsoft Outlook or the equivalent of the cloud-hosted service. In general, this is installed by default within the Office Suite of our computer. In addition, it goes without saying that you can recover permanently deleted emails if you have not made the backup copies in Outlook.
- Enter Microsoft Outlook to backup emails.
- In the top bar, select the “File” option. Then, in the drop-down menu, click on “Open and Export”. Then select the “Import or Export” box.
- Click on the option «Export to a file» and then on «Next».
- From the two options below, select “Outlook Data Files (.pst)”.
- Choose the email account you want to backup. By doing so, the back-up will include all the information from your mailbox. You can also select individual folders and back them up. When finished, remember to check the “Include subfolders” box. To continue the process, select «Next».
- Click “Browse” to choose the folder where the backup will be saved. You can also choose one of three options:
- Replace duplicates with exported items [duplicate information in the exported file is overwritten],
- Allow creation of duplicates [existing data is not overwritten and duplicates are added to the back-up] and
- Do not export duplicate items [duplicate data will not be copied to the backup file].
- Finally, you can add a password for the file. If you don’t want to, click “OK”.
At the end of this process, you will have already created a backup copy of your entire email mailbox. The .pst file will have been saved in the folder you indicated at the beginning. Now you can store it on an external hard drive, a pen drive or in the cloud. That way, if your computer suffers any damage, you won’t lose your information.
On the other hand, if you want to open this file to consult its data, you can restore the copy you just created.
How to restore a backup of your Outlook or Hotmail mail
To restore a backup, do the following:
- Open Microsoft Outlook.
- Click on “File”. Then «Import or Export».
- Select “Import from another program or file.” Then «Next».
- Click on the “Outlook data file (.pst)” box and click “Next”.
- By clicking on “Browse” you will be able to find the backup to be restored in the folder where it is saved. When you find it, select it and click “Next”.
- If you have a password, enter it and then click “OK.”
- Select the folders you want to import. You can also restore the mailbox completely. If this is the case, don’t forget to check the “Include subfolders” box.
- To finish, click on “Finish”.
After this, you will have successfully restored your Outlook or Hotmail backup. You can also check this data using a free .pst file viewer. And if you want to keep your information always available, you can also import the backup to a Gmail email.
How often should a backup be done?
This depends on the amount of data you handle in your email or on your hosting. If you use it from time to time, an annual copy should be more than enough. But if you frequently send and receive a large amount of information, you should keep in mind that perhaps there is the possibility of not being able to open your emails. In this case, you should make a backup copy every 3 or 4 months, and also archive old emails to free up space if necessary.