Backup your Hotmail

I received an email from a company (Digital Agency) that I have been speaking to about some work and the email address of one of the staff members was a Hotmail address. At first I thought it was spam coming in but after looking at the content of the email it was the itinerary for an event/discussion I was scheduled to attend.

It got me thinking though. How many companies small ones I suppose still use their hotmail address and account to communicate with clients. Surely there must be some out there. If you troll through the flyingsolo.com.au forums you will see hotmail addresses and probably this very topic being raised regarding whether it is time to make the move to an email address that atleast matches the businesses name.

Obviously not everyone is ready for that so they continue to use Hotmail. Then if that is the case what if anything can they do to backup their important data like the emails, docs (attachments) and contacts that are stored within your Hotmail account.

So I dug around and found the common solution that is recommended by the tech geniuses out there and here it is.

This is the recommended method and it involves you downloading Windows Live Mail to your machine. This is the free email program that was launched as a replace to Outlook Express and of course Windows Mail which came with Vista.

Once you have it installed you need to sync the two systems so that a backup can be started and then maintained. Configure your email account with your Windows Live Hotmail email address and password.

Once the configuration is done, the syncing can then begin. Find the Sync menu within Windows Live Mail.

The Sync function enables your Windows Live Mail to download/upload all messages (and attachments) from your contacts. It ensure that you can now use either Hotmail or Windows Live interchangeably. This should remain in sync.

This backup method is great if you think your PC will live forever that your files will do the same. We all know that PCs crash and with the crash goes the data. The only way to secure this data is to make another copy of the email contents file and store it remotely using an external drive or even better an online backup service.

You can find all of your email as individual “.eml” messages in the Windows Live Mail storage folder. Located by clicking on C:\Documents and Settings\PC name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

These are the files that need to now be backed up offsite.

If you don’t like using a service like Windows Live Mail, then maybe consider feeding your Hotmail emails into your desktop email client eg Outlook or into an alternative online email account such as GMail. By sending  a copy through to another service you are effectively creating an automated backup.

Receiving: pop3.live.com

Sending: smtp.live.com

Use your full Hotmail email address and password for the login authentication.