Tech: Storing Email

Subject: Tech: Storing Email
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 02:12 PM

Is there a quick way to download folders of email for storage? I have lots of old notes I'd like to keep off the computer and wonder if I have to save each one individually as .eml or if there is a way to do an entire folder at once.

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 02:14 PM

using which email program? They use different formats. You 'should' be able to just save a folders worth with an identifiable name and then re-load it to the program if you need to access old mail.

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 02:16 PM

What program?


Many allow you to create "local folders" - you can then specify your floppyt drive for a particular folder - and copy e-mails to it until the disk is full.

YOu will require the same e-mail program to READ them...

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 03:33 PM

Most email is stored "on the machine" as what amounts to database files. Each folder is essentially a single file, and an index, sometimes but not always a separate file, allows the email program to access the individual "records" - i.e. individual messages, within the folder.

The usual method of "archiving" is to simply copy the folder files to somewhere else. It is important though, in those email programs that use a separate "index file," that you copy both the folder and its index, and it can be difficult to tell which index file goes with which folder.

The safest method is to copy the entire email directory every time you make an archive.

Most programs have something called a "compact folders" routine, that takes out any gaps left by deleted messages and re-compiles the index. For best results you should always run the "compact" process immediately before you make your archive copies of the email folders.

When you want to recover messages, you use an "import" routine to bring the whole mess, or individual folders, back into your email program. With this method you cannot go and get a single file from the archive, you must import an entire folder.

Since the folder is a single file, and messages are tracked by their "record number" rather than by a filename, you can have the same message in a folder more than once. If you copy your email directory somewhere as an archive, and then import it back into your email program without deleting anything in the mean time, you probably will have two copies of each message. If you're lucky, sometimes you'll have them in two folders with the same name.

Some programs allow you to save individual messages, as email files, as has been mentioned. In OE, it's a "File - Save As" and the default is "as email." This standard email message has a file extension .eml, and the individual message can be opened in most email programs. Any attachments will be saved as part of the file. When you open it in your email program, it should look just like it did when you received it. You can put it back into a program folder using an "Edit - move to folder" operation in OE, and other programs should have a similar ability.

The problem with this procedure is that you must save each message individually, and since the saved messages are normal disk files rather than data records, you have to avoid overwriting one file with another one having the same name. (It's rather surprising how often this happens, since the "default" file name is usually the email subject line.) Changing the name you use to save the message does not in any way affect the content of the message, so you can edit the name of the .eml files.

You also have to open each .eml message individually to look at it, and if you want to put them back into your program folders you have to move back them individually, one at a time. If you've set your email to open .eml files by associating the .eml extension, on most machines you should be able to highlight a dozen or more in WinExplorer, right click, and click open, and they'll all come up for you. (My machine craps out at about 105 messages, if there are few attachments; but I've got more than typical RAM available.)
If you really need to be able to dig up individual messages from your archive, then look for a "Save As" function in your email program, save a few individual files and verify that you can open them; and then get in the practice of saving each, or at least each critical, messages when you get them.

If you just want to archive in bulk, all you have to do with most programs is "compact" to make sure the indexes are up to date, and then copy the whole email directory to a safe place. And of course, you should try a few "imports" to make sure that what you're saving can be recovered.

If an index file gets lost, but you still have the message folder, in OE at least, you can sometimes still get an import if a folder named identically the same as the folder you are importing is already in the program. Open OE, create a folder with the name of the folder you're trying to import, and then run the File - Import - email messages - from store, and browse to where the archived folder is located.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 08:39 PM

I use Outlook Express. Have found files (in Windows Explorer) that have suffixes of dbx and mbx and idx. Are these the files I need to archive? And then how do I get them back into a readable form? OE will not let me save an entire folder except to another OE folder but not to one on my drive that I choose, and will only export to Microsoft Exchange. John, what do you mean by the entire email directory? Do you mean "local folders"?

I've been saving individual mail using "save as.." as .eml files, but I was hoping to be able to save an entire folder somehow. I'm such a pack rat that it's way out of control...

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 12:27 AM

Barbara -

In Outlook Express, you can use "File - Export - Messages." Browse for a destination, and it should put all you need wherever you want it.

Export does NOT remove the files from OE, it only COPIES the stuff to the export file location; so you can back them up and still view them in OE until you delete them there.

Remeber to "File - Compact All Folders" before you export. It will greatly improve the odds of getting stuff back.

The only reasonable way to look at something that's been exported and subsequently deleted from OE is to use "File - Import - Messages - From Archive/Storage." (The "names" on the menu may change with different versions, but that's the basics.)

When you do the Import you can import individual folders, but not individual files/messages, so arrange things before you export so that you'll be able to bring back small chunks***.

It's usually best to export the whole "tree" (Local Folders and/or Hotmail etc if you have a service that creates it's own "tree.")

If your machine won't let you copy the whole bag of .dbx, .mbx, and .idx files, it's probably because of some "privileges" setting. You can normally copy the whole email folder elsewhere unless you're not sufficiently "privileged" on your machine.

** I do use individual .eml backup, simply because I have the need (for business purposes) to be able to pull up individual message files when needed. Because we had previously used both exported backups and re-imports, we had accumulated quite a number of duplicates, which OE lets you do if you import one that's already there. I'm just finishing up doing a "resave" of about 38,000+ .eml messages, using a "single standard name format" specifically to get rid of dupes. It got me back to about 17,800 surviving "unique" messages.

When saving .eml, I've found it convenient to use the file naming convention "YYMMDDHHMM_Sender_Subject Line.eml" for incoming, and "YYMMDDHHMM_@Addressee_Subject Line.eml" for outgoing. The Year First date stamp automatically displays the files by date in Explorer, and if you use a "24 hour clock" for the HHMM (time of day) it's very unlikely you'll get the same "name" on two different files and overwrite something. (The Subject Line is the default filename for a "Save-As," so all you need to do is add the "timestamp" and name on front of it. This also gives each unique message the same filename if it crops up more than once, so the "save" operation will tell you if it's a duplicate.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 12:46 AM

I should have footnoted that the .eml file format can be opened in Notepad or Word, since it's basically a plain text file. You can't look at the attachments if you do it that way, but for "quick-look" purposes, it is a lot easier than importing a folder full of stuff and then sorting through it in OE.

Exporting the email files in their "native" .dbx format will give you much more compact storage, and is the "easy way" of making sure that you've got an archive, since you can do all the messages at one shot. Each .eml file will be 1 or 2 KB, if there's no attachment; but you can fit about 15 or 20 thousand of them on 2 or 3 CDs, so if you're getting them off the machine anyway, the size difference probably isn't too significant.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:01 AM

In Outlook Express, you can use "File - Export - Messages." Browse for a destination, and it should put all you need wherever you want it.

My OE only lets me do a file-export-messages to Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook. That was my first attempt to export folders, thus my thread.

When saving .eml, I've found it convenient to use the file naming convention "YYMMDDHHMM_Sender_Subject Line.eml" for incoming, and "YYMMDDHHMM_@Addressee_Subject Line.eml" for outgoing.

I too add a date stamp to the subject when saving individual eml files. Is there a way to have this done automatically, or do you add this to each message?

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:25 AM

thanks for this thread! I quit using OE a couple of years ago, but like to access old messages and notes sometimes. Also, wanted to get them off my computer for storage purposes. Now, I can see how to do that. I am esp. glad to learn that I can read .eml in note or wordpad.

kat

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:29 PM

There have apparently been some changes in OE with ver 6, which is the current (and recommended, for security) version. I'm going to have to take a another look at the import/export functions. I have recently imported message files from an old Win98 machine, but we've encountered the "Outlook" problem trying to backup an address book from OE. It wants you to set Outlook (instead as Outlook Express) as your "default mail client" before it will let you export.

For a quick fix, it looks like you could turn on Outlook for the export and then go back to Outlook Express when you're done. Past versions of Outlook have made it too much trouble to turn off all the messaging, chat, and "realliveIcan'tstandtoputmycellphonedownforaminute" "enablements" that it includes, so I've preferred OE for my default.

Sorry that I hadn't noted the changes. I can't promise when I'll get a chance to look more at this.

Kat - If you've "associated" .eml files with OE, opening one by double-click in WinExplorer will open it in OE offline. If you open it in a text editor, you get that messy view that people see if they use non-html email viewing, so there's a lot of header stuff, and no pretty pictures - and, of course, no attachments.

You can also "Save-As Text," if you just want individual message files; but if you do that you have to extract and save attachments separately.

One of my reasons for saving individual .eml files is that we trade attached files that frequently come back several times with the same file name but as different versions, and saving separate .eml files with the attachments included keeps the different attachment versions associated with the messages.

I haven't figured out a way to "automate" the date stamp in saved .eml filenames. It's not a "conceptually difficult" task, but I don't know of a program for doing it, and haven't made one of my own (yet?).

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:15 AM

Thanks to everyone, and especially John in Kansas for his detailed posts and very helpful sharing of tech knowledge. This thread has reinforced my suspicion that my pack-rattism is at the danger point (both on the computer and in the attic) so I'm going to do some much needed cleanup on both fronts. Right after I work on the procrastination problem...

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 12:06 PM

I did find that the problem SWMBO was having exporting her address book from OE has a rather simple solution.

She was trying to click "File - Export" and it demanded that she make Outlook her default program in order to do and addy book export. If you open the address book first, and click on "File - Export" in the address book it exports quite nicely as a .wab.

Hopefully there's a similarly simple solution to exporting messages in .dbx format from OE, but I really haven't had a chance to look yet.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 01:51 PM

Isn't there an email program somewhere that makes all this simplle and straightforward, without having to understand what you're doing? So that you can just say click on a mail folder, and say "save it" to some CD or somewhere, and retrieve it later when you want it, without worrying about what kind of file it is and all that tech stuff?

"Export to Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange" - I don't really know what that means. I don't want to archive my emails to something on my hard disk, what I want is to have them handy on a CD, so the next time my computer crashes, I don't lose the emails and so forth, and can reload them on my email programme when I get it going once more.

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:23 PM

Mcgrath

with Eudora, you just copy out the mail and index files (one of each for each folder) to CD, then use that as a backup..

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:41 PM

That sounds better, and I might try it. But it's a bit cumbersome if you've sorted your mail into different folders.

Any advance on that?

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 08:43 PM

You can sort it into multiple storage folders - you can even have a directory substructure, but I don't use that.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 10:04 PM

Barbara -

You indicated that you found .dbx files, but then something about not being able to copy or save. I'm afraid I misinterpreted what you were saying.

On re-reading, you were apparently looking for a way to copy the files from "inside" OE(?).

The export function in OE is really intended only for when you want to "send" files to an application other than OE. It appears that the only choice they put on the menu in the new version is to send it to Outlook, and then they didn't fully implement an export filter to actually do it. Outlook uses a different file format than Outlook Express, so you actually would need an "export" process to produce Outlook files from the OE ones. This shouldn't be a real problem, because the guys actually using Outlook can (they say) export OE format for you if you need their messages, and they can import OE format and do their own conversions if they need yours.

The "standard" way of making an OE backup is to Open OE, compact the files and then close OE. Use Windows Explorer to go to where the .dbx files for your email are located (Search for .dbx is how you find the location), and select the entire folder, usually one named "email." Copy the entire folder, and paste it somewhere else where you'll be able to find it.

You need to close OE in order to copy the files, since OE automatically opens some of the files in the email folder, and trying to copy open files can sometimes fail - or just be refused as an illegal operation.

Sometimes you can just copy an individual folder and its index from inside the email folder, to use as a backup, and then just copy them back into the email folder that OE is using if you need to restore the messages; but that's not a reliable way of doing it because OE's multiple levels of indexes get tangled with each other and OE gets confused. A trivial example of confusion is when you copy back a folder with the same name as one already there. The incoming index may replace the one that was already in OE, causing all kinds of corruption.

As long as the .dbx files are in a folder called email, and the proper index files are there, OE should accept it as a "store directory" that you can import stuff from if you want to get something back into OE. Click "File - Import." Choose Import OE6 messages. Select "import from store directory" and then browse to where you put the folder you copied. Pick what sub-folders you want to import, and the "Wizard" should get them back into OE.

In this case, "import" refers to the process for merging the incoming files and their indexes with the existing ones already present, rather than to the common meaning of changing file types.

I still need to take a look at whether Mickeysoft has come up with something new on this, since the new version does seem to act a little differently; but the above is "they way we've always done it," and it still works for my OE.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Feb 04 - 04:10 PM

In Outlook Express:

1. To make a backup of email messages, you copy the .dbx "folder file(s)" to a backup location.

Comment on item 1: Microsoft says that you do not need any index files, and that they will be rebuilt when you bring the .dbx folders back into OE. Numerous other sources say that this often doesn't work, so copying the entire content of the email folder when making a backup is still recommended.

Comment a. on item 1: There is an "easy" way to find the email files. In OE, click on "Tools" then "Options" and pick the "Maintenance" tab. Click the button marked "Stores Location." Select all of what's in the stores location box, and Copy (Ctl-C, or Edit-Copy) the location to clipboard. Cancel out, back to the normal OE view, and close OE. Click "Start" then "Run" and paste the address in the command box. When you "OK" or hit Enter, a Windows Explorer-like view of that "address" will open. Select All, Copy, and paste the whole thing to a backup location (in a folder identified so you'll know which backup it is.)

Comment b. on item 1: In OE, all messages in an OE folder are contained in a single file. You can't use this method to save an individual message, you can only backup and restore complete "folders;" so you would still use the "Save as .eml" from OE if you want to be able to handle a single message as an individual thing.

2. To make a backup of your address book, you Export it as a "Comma Separated Values" text file. File – Export, select "address book," and choose .csv as the "how to export" entry. If you select export as .csv you'll have the option of naming the file and telling it where to go.

Comment on a. item 2: Most of the "Export As" choices in OE assume that you are sending information to another program on your machine, and "will put it where it belongs(?)" if that's true. If the other program isn't installed, they'll generally tell you the export failed, but in some cases they lie and tell you the export was done. So far as I can tell, the "export into another application" choices do not generally produce a file you can copy to a backup if the other application is not on your machine.

Comment b. on item 2: Earlier versions of OE (through OE4.5) were reported as not exporting contacts in sub folders within the address book. It was necessary to move everything into the "top folder" before exporting. I cannot find anything that says that this is still a problem; but I also cannot find anything that says the problem has been fixed.

3. Microsoft states that to restore an email folder from backup to OE you just copy the backup "folder file" back into the "OE store location" (the place you got it from originally). This usually works, but many people have reported failures. If you've encountered a failure, it sometimes works if you create, in OE, a folder with the identical name as the one you'r tring to bring back, and the past will overwrite it when you do the copy. By creating the folder in OE first, the index system in OE knows that it's supposed to process the new folder.

3.a. If you've copied an entire backup per 1 above, you also have the choice of using "File - Import – Email – from backup store," and browsing to your backup location to get a folder back. This is a much more reliable method if OE recognizes your "store," but is not documented in anything "official" that I can find at Microsoft.

4. To restore an address book from your backup to OE, you use "File – Import – Address Book" in OE and specify your .csv (Comma Separated Variables) file as the source to import from.

5. To make a complete backup (for recovery purposes) of your OE stuff, and to restore from that backup you should follow instructions in OLEXP: How to Back Up and Recover Outlook Express Data [Originally Q270670]

Comment on item 5: Any new system installation or upgrade, and ofteen even a "system reinstall" risks wiping out some or all of your OE information. Backup is recommended before it's all gone. The risk of losing info from other browser/email programs is possibly even a little greater than for OE. Almost any browser/email program can export .csv address books, which can be imported back in almost any new browser/email program; but there are far too many different programs to leave off the "almost." As pointed out at the link above, you also have some "accounts" and other things you may want in a full backup. The linked article is somewhat old, dating to when WinME was the hot system; but it is shown as applicable to OE6.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 01:49 AM

What about us old Netscape fogeys? Now that I'm on WinXP and Netscape 7.something (as opposed to old standby 4.7x), it took me most of a day and the help of several Mudcatters just to FIND my "sent" and "trash" folders! And I never learned how to save emails in 4.7...is it any easier in 7.0/XP?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Storing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Feb 04 - 02:36 AM

Mark -

Sorry, but I've only used Netscape when it was an "administered" program on a company network. They wouldn't let me mess with it. I resorted to "save as text" for each message I wanted to keep; but you have to be very careful to save any attachments in a separate action, and figure out a way to keep the text msg and its attachments together. Easiest result is a separate folder for each "message set."
And of course when you save as text you don't get any "pasted" graphics, except with a separate copy and paste before saving.
I'm sure there's a better way.

Netscape probably has help files. In OE, an index search for "backup" gets most of the info available. Unfortunately, in OE, quite a bit of what's in the Help file is simply wrong.

John