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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.

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16 thoughts on “Backup Your Email Address Book – Video Tip”

  1. Thanks for posting this article. I’m decidedly frustrated with struggling to search out pertinent and intelligent commentary on this issue. Everybody today goes to the very far extremes to either drive home their viewpoint that either: everyone else in the planet is wrong, or two that everyone but them does not really understand the situation. Many thanks for your concise, pertinent insight.

  2. I got it to work. When I saved it as text, it saved it in the documents and it looks like I had saved it several times. I was able to save both Contacted and Person Addresses on a flash drive.
    Thanks for everybody’s ideas and comments. I had no clue how to do this.

  3. Just adding some thing here. In addition, you could also use mailstore to back up mail from all your email accounts (gmail, yahoo, thunderbird….) collectively to harddisk or usb. A big advantage is the ability to search for some thing in all the mails together. Mailstore can be installed into a usb, so it will run from any windows machine and u can carry your usb with all your mail viewable any time.

    http://www.skipser.toolsbysk.com/p/2/p/general/how-to-backup-emails-on-usb-drive-easily.html

  4. Good tip, but I prefer (and this is obviously for more tech people) to copy my outlook .pst file located in the following directory:

    C:\Documents and Settings\”your user name”\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

    I store that badboy on my external backup device in case something ever happens. This file inludes all mail, contacts, calender, notes, etc.

    What it does not contain, and I wish it did, is Email account settings. I just keep print screens of each account for those, but I am sure someone has a better idea.

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