Snuffy - I haven't found anything like that at either MSN or Hotmail, but others may have something like it.

If you happen to be using Outlook for your email, the basic method of backing up your email is simply to copy your .pst file and paste it in another location.

You should be able to use Windows Explorer to find your .pst folder. In Folders view click on your primary (C:\) drive, then click Search view and select "All Files and Folders." Yu may have to click "Advanced" options and put a check mark in to include Hidden and System files. Search for "*.pst." When the results appear, right-click on your .pst folder, click Copy (or Ctl-C), go back to folders view and choose (or create) someplace to put it.

A slightly more complex (and slightly preferable) procedure is described in the general instructions article (same as the last link at the bottom of this post). This procedure allows you to rename the "backup .pst" before you copy it to your backup location.

If you really want to simplify it, an addin tool called "Personal Folders Backup" is provided. The articles I found reference Outlook thru 2002, so later versions may have something slightly different(?).

Article ID 238782 explains how to use the tool, which is incredibly simple once you've got the addon installed. This article gives a link to a place where you can download the addin.

(Article ID 810932 explains what to do if you have difficulty getting the tool to work. The Outlook versions cited appear to be older ones, but it might help with any questions(?).)

This tool will add a "Backup" button to your Outlook menu.

If you use this tool, you can select which folders to backup. If your whole thing is too large for a CD or DVD, you could select different sets of folders and back up each set in a separate place for later burn to individual CD/DVD archives.

If you have too many emails in your inbox for convenient archiving (too large an inbox file) you can create subfolders in Outlook to split the emails into separate lumps that you can handle, and then separately back up sets of the smaller individual folders.

Copying your .pst file to someplace else will preserve all your email messages, including attachements. How the attachments appear in the backup may be variable. Outlook users might want to take a look at Article ID 289972 for some assistance with attachments.

General Outlook instructions are at Article ID 287456 and may be helpful if other mysteries appear. This article should be consulted by anyone using Outlook, as it has a lot of helpful information.

Since the .pst file contains virtually everything associated with your email, it should include a backup of the contacts (address book) for the user whose .pst file is saved.

John