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Backup Your Email Address Book – Video Tip

You can back up your address book very simply to a floppy disk or USB Flash drive and the heartache it has the potential to prevent far outweighs the thirty seconds it takes to complete the task. Follow these steps depending on the program you use:

 Outlook Express Windows Mail Users

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Outlook Express 
  3. Click the Address Book icon from the toolbar.
  4. Click File –> Export –> Other Address Book from the menus
  5. Choose the Text (CSV) option
  6. Click Next
  7. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  8. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  9. Click Save
  10. Click OK after backup completes
  11. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Windows Mail Users(Vista)

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Windows Mail
  3. Click File –> Export –> Windows Contacts from the menus
  4. Choose CSV option
  5. Click Export
  6. Click in the Browse button and choose your flash drive
  7. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  8. Click Save
  9. Click Next
  10. Put a checkmark in the First and Last Name fields
  11. Click Finish
  12. Click OK after backup completes
  13. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Thunderbird Users

  1. Insert a USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Thunderbird
  3. Click Window –> Address book from the menus
  4. Click File –> Export
  5. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  6. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  7. Click Save
  8. Pull out the disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

 

AOL Users

Version less than 6.0, Start AOL, open the address book, insert a floppy or USB flash drive and use the “Save/Replace” button to save your address book.

Versions greater than 6.0 do not have the option of saving to a floppy because the address book is actually saved on AOL’s computers.

Juno Users

Refer to the instructions at Juno’s web site for details if you are using Juno 5.0 or earlier. Juno Platinum users can retrieve email in Outlook Express and use the instructions above.

Related articles:

  1. Printing your email address book – Netscape/Mozilla
  2. Backup Your Favorites (Bookmarks) – Video Tip
  3. Printing your email address book – Outlook Express & AOL
  4. Print Address Book – Outlook Express Revisited
  5. Recycle a Floppy Disk

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Email Tips. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

6 comments

  1. Anonymous
    December 24, 2007 at 12:11 am

    I have found that backing up mail and address book is the easy part. (In fact backing up, in general)
    My problem is restoring it. ie, I had it on a flash drive and couldnt seem to get it on to a new computer.
    The address book, and the mail itself seem to be in different locations, correct? Could you please run thru the steps of reversing the backup process?

    Thank you,
    Anne

    Reply
  2. Anonymous
    February 29, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    I tried to export my address book via your instructions and all worked fine except only the Main Identity folder exported…not any of the sub folders. I tried selecting one of those to export and still got the Main Identity only. What’s happening?

    Reply
  3. Anonymous
    May 17, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    I have a class from HP and we are creating a business card
    with a photo on it. How do I move that picture?? HELP!
    I may need the voodoo bear soon!!! Thanks Sherrie Mack
    radarspeed57@yahoo.com

    Reply
  4. Anonymous
    September 1, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    Be aware that the instructions for address book backup for Outlook Express doesn’t do a complete backup. These exact instructions are posted everywhere, MS included, yet they don’t tell you that this CSV backup doesn’t capture any but the main identities entries…it does not get any of the sub-folders or groups. If you want ALL your addresses, begin with START>RUN> type “wab /a” before you open the Address book. Then when you follow these instructions you’ll get all the addresses. You’ll loose the folders and groups, but you’ll get ALL the addresses.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous
    October 29, 2008 at 9:54 am

    in the newest version of Thunderbird, the export function does not appear under the “file” drop down, but is in the tools menu. When I export to my flash drive it saves it to Word as an ldif file, and looks like a scattered and random bunch of information along with discernible address and names.

    Is this as clean as Thunderbird gets for this purpose?

    Thanks for the years of help, Rick
    Bill

    Reply
  6. Rick
    October 29, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    LDIF is another standard address book format and it can’t be read cleanly…just re-imported into your address book. Instead, use the Thunderbird Export to CSV format.

    Reply

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