Backup Windows Live Mail and Contacts

How to backup your Windows Live Mail and Windows Contacts

---

Closed Caption:

hello this is kate from computer care
Kelowna and i'm going to show you today
how you can back up your windows live
mail email and your contacts
why well even though I'm sure you're all
doing a full-scale backup of all your
important computer files
it's good to have a backup that separate
from that just your email in case you
want to move your email to a new
computer it's easy to do it if you have
it backed up like this rather than
having to worry about restoring from a
full scale back up
also for safety sake it's just good to
have another backup
so i'm going to show you how you can do
that put it on a flash drive or burn it
to a CD or DVD if you're still doing
that now
windows live mail is the microsoft email
client that has replaced the old outlook
express which we had in windows XP and
it's also replaced windows mail without
the live in the middle that was built
into vista you can use windows live mail
and visit if you want to and you can use
the scaled-down version of it on windows
XP if you want to if you're using
Windows 7
you're probably using windows live mail
so here's how to back it up we need to
start by just creating a new folder on
the desktop and naming it something
informative
i'm gonna call it male backup or mail be
you and that's what we're going to copy
all our information to when we get done
with the copying it there will either
burn it or or put it over onto the DVD
onto the flash drive
but we're going to start by putting
everything in this folder so now just
open the windows live mail and we'll
start with contacts
I click down here for contacts I don't
have many because this isn't the program
that i use but if I did I would still
export them the same way
click on export and she was , separated
values
now it wants to know where we're going
to put them
so we're going to put them in that
folder that we just created on our
desktop and we have to name that file
and I'm going to call it contacts backup
and it's going to go to desktop and Mail
backup folder click on next
now our friends at microsoft made some
choices about what -
normal people need if you might have
information in your contacts that are
stored in any of these other fields or
you don't know
just take a moment click all of it
if they come over empty it's no big deal
if you had information in there you
totally want to preserve it so click
them all say finish and wait a moment
for that export and it's pretty much
done but never hurts to check
yeah I really all are ok so now we're
going to go to messages
there's a couple ways to do this I think
this isn't smartest way
click here go to options go to mail and
now we need to find the folder in which
all of this stuff is stored so click on
advanced than on maintenance than on the
store folder and this little box here
tells us we're all this stuff is stored
highlight this all of it
right click select copy and now
cancel don't change anything just cancel
close everything cancel everything very
important close windows live mail
completed because we don't want to be
messing around in the store folder when
it
windows live mail decides it's time to
send
receive mail ok so we've copied the
location of the store folder if you're
using vista or windows seven
just go to the start search box press
the control and the V key at the same
time and select windows live mail from
the search results if you're using
windows live mail on XP
you need to first select run and then
paste it in with control V and then
click on OK take you to the same place
so here's the contents of our windows
live mail folder as you can see there's
quite a lot of stuff in there
we want to copy the whole folder we
don't want to concern ourselves with all
of this stuff
individually so go up one level
click on Microsoft you'll see the live
mail is still highlighted
right click windows live mail select
copy
go back to your backup folder right
click select paste and if you've got a
lot of mail
you're going to need to get that a
minute I don't have very much in there
and it's still going to take a minute
and there it is
it is completed and you can see that
that stuff is the same stuff that was in
our windows folder now if you're going
to burn this to a CD or DVD you can use
the burn choice right here
or more likely you already have a
program that will burn so use that
program the way you normally would
the folder you want to burn is right
here
male back up but what we're going to do
is we're going to copy this over to a
little flash drive
as if we were going to move this to a
new computer
so I've plugged in a flash drive it's
called v8 and I've opened it up
let's just make it so we can see
everything
now I just right click and drag and say
copy here and this will take the folder
content and its contents and copy them
from my desktop right to my flash drive
and again that's going to take just a
few more seconds here
and it is still copying there's quite a
bit of stuff in there that's not just
email messages but hey it can't hurt to
have that backed up to
so just give it some time
it's done copying and now you can see
that you have the contents of the mail
backup folder right here on your flash
drive
there it is ok
you can now get rid of this folder
string over your recycle bin and you can
safely remove your flash drives and you
are done
so you could take this flash drive to
your new computer plug it in and go
through the import process or you could
just put it in a drawer someplace safe
and have an in case of emergency
I hope that's been helpful don't forget
to visit us at computer care kelowna
dot-com and click on the link to read
the getting along with your computer
column
thanks for watching