Backing up entire mail file within Outlook

[Dronfieldman]

I wish to periodically back up all my e-mail from Outlook.   Outlook Help provides a method of doing this which involves having to back up one folder at a time as a .pst file.   As I have a number of folders, to do this would be very tedious.   Help on this website talks in terms of finding out where there is a .pst file held, but doing a search on C:\Windows within Windows Explorer says that there aren't any files consisting of *.pst.   Can anyone advise on how to back up ALL e-mails from ALL folders in a fairly simple way?

[soybean]

Your version of Outlook?

[Dronfieldman]

Outlook 2003 (11.8330.8333) SP3

[Salmon Trout]

doing a search on C:\Windows within Windows Explorer says that there aren't any files consisting of *.pst.

It's not in C:\Windows. You need to search your whole C: drive or you can use Outlook itself to tell you the exact path of your PST file. Open Tree View of your folders and right click "Personal Folders" click Properties and then Advanced and you will see a box labelled "Filename:" that contains the path to the PST file that holds all those folders. Or you can tell us what OS you are running and we can advise where to look.

[Computer_Commando]

All Outlook emails are contained within 1 file (??.pst), contained not within C:\Windows.  Probably under C:\Documents and Settings\"Your User Name".  Just search the entire C-drive.

[Dronfieldman]

When I tried to search for '*.pst* on C:, it just gave a message "Nothing found for query '.pst' because the folder C: is not indexed.

I went to the path C:\documents & settings\ ... \Outlook and found files there called Outlook, Outlook1 up to Outlook4, but it doesn't say whether they are .pst files (in Windows Explorer).   It says they're Office Data Files.   Do you think they are the .pst files?   If so, do I need to backup all 5 files to be sure of getting all the e-mails backed up?

I'm running Windows XP Professional.

[Salmon Trout]

it doesn't say whether they are .pst files (in Windows Explorer).   It says they're Office Data Files.   Do you think they are the .pst files? 

Have you set Explorer to show file extensions?

[Dronfieldman]

Have now shown file extensions but none of the Outlook files at C:\Documents & Settings\ ...\ Outlook is a .pst file.