If you turn off the prompt to auto archive, does archiving still run?

This is about Microsoft Outlook email. I'll use Outlook 2003 as the example but others are similar.

To control archiving in Outlook, select Tools, Options, the "Other" tab, and click on AutoArchive:



You'll see something like this:



The checkbox I've circled in red turns AutoArchive on or off. If you don't want to AutoArchive (for example because it: is annoying, takes up processing power, or doesn't save a copy of any of your emails) untick the checkbox.

If the checkbox is ticked, your emails will be archived.

The other checkbox is the one I've circled in blue. That one determines whether Outlook tells you when it is AutoArchiving or not. The main benefit of being told is that you can say, "Not right now" if you're on a computationally challenged laptop and are already trying to get it to do stuff you need done.

Why Archive?

Mainly it is about moving old email out of the main Outlook .pst file so that Outlook has fewer things to look through when you ask it to find something. It also speeds up performance (a little) for other things too.

One benefit is that if your main Outlook file gets corrupted, you still have a chance that the email in your archive file is intact and readable.

What AutoArchive doesn't do is save a copy of any of your email. If you lose email in Outlook (e.g. deleted and emptied, had a disk fail, reinstalled Outlook over your existing email) it is gone. It is always a good idea to backup important files and many emails contain crucial information so that means email too.

SaveMail Pro is a good tool (by us) for backing up Outlook email. With all the features it has now, I think you'd have a hard time finding one that is better value for money.

Save Outlook Email Folders

Well, what was pretty good just got even better.

SaveMail Pro version 1.00.0045 was released last night and it has some really great features.

It still allows you to save your Outlook email as MSG files that you can load back into Outlook somewhere else. It still allows you to save emails as text files or emails as text files and attachments as normal files you can open in Windows Explorer.

However, this version adds two more fantastic features (I like them):

• You can save email folder names with the email.
  This means if you've organized all your email, it stays organized.
  


• It has ClickYes support built in.*
  This means no more having to "Allow access for XX minutes."
  

The new output (with Folders and DIR turned on) looks like:



Pretty cool, eh?

* You have to install ClickYes for SaveMail to use it - but that's easy because we've included it as an optional install.

A program is trying to access Outlook. Allow access for ... minutes.

This is not what I expected - an ad for someone else's product. I'll also state that I wasn't asked to do this and I'm not getting anything for mentioning it.

The product is called "Express ClickYes". It is free. It is tiny (31.5Kb). It means you never again have to press the "Allow" button to save your email.

When it is running, it looks like this:


What it does is press the "Allow" button for you, whenever the button appears. If saving your email takes too long (lots of email) it will press the button for you for as many times as needed to save your email.

It's a really clever idea. Probably very simple, but very nicely done and ever so useful.

You can just run it and turn it on; but a better solution would be to turn it on when you run SaveMail and turn it off afterwards.

For the technically minded, the following VBScript works (save this as SaveMail.vbs and then double click it to run):

clickyes="C:\Program Files\Express ClickYes\ClickYes.exe"
savemail="C:\Program Files\GssEziSoft\SaveMail Pro\SaveMail_Pro.exe"

Set SH = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
SH.Run """" & clickyes & """ -activate"
SH.Run """" & savemail & """",,true ' and wait
SH.Run """" & clickyes & """ -stop"
Set SH = nothing

You can get a copy of "Express ClickYes" from ContextMagic.com.

Save Outlook Emails as Normal Files

The latest release of SaveMail now makes it possible to save email as ordinary files.

We think this is brilliant as you can read your email virtually anywhere instead of only in the email program you used to download it. Isn't that great!

The only drawback is space. The email programs make a big thing about how they compress email so you have it all but it doesn't take up "any" space. They do a good job with this so they are right to brag about it. An uncompressed file does take up more space than a compressed one (generally).

However, you can have your cake and eat it too.

You can always compress individual emails, or a whole set of them, using any of the ZIP / compression tools. You can extract any part of any email anytime and anywhere. You can read any attachment on any computer that can read the attachment - you don't have to have Outlook installed too.

It's really easy.

Step 1. Choose the DIRectory output style. (Options, Output, DIR) like this:



Step 2. Choose which email folder to save and where to save the emails.

Step 3. Click Search to list the emails, then Save to save them.

Voila! You end up with something like this:



And in the attachments subdirectory, something like this:



Easy. Easy to use software tools. Because software should make your life easier.

SaveMail - Run-time error '380'

This was first noticed with SaveMail version 1.00.0040 but it is probably an issue for earlier versions too.

You get a message like:



This happens if there are no items in the "Contents" list when you press "Save".



I'd chosen a "Mail Folder" and selected a "Save to" directory but hadn't pressed "Search" before pressing "Save".

I've added code to check that there are items in the list when you press "Save" so future versions will be more helpful about the problem.

(If you are a programmer that found this article because you were looking for Run-time error 380, the problem was setting a progress bar maximum to 0. This may be your problem too but there are other things that could cause it. I suggest running your program in the Integrated Development Environment and seeing which line trips the error.)

Outlook 2003 Command Line Backup

With SaveMail you can backup your Outlook email from the command line (cmd prompt). It's pretty easy really.

SaveMail allows you to specify all of its parameters on the command line. It works like this:

[path\]SaveMail (Email-Folder) (Output-Directory) /autorun

For example:

C> cd \Program Files\GssEziSoft\SaveMail Pro
C> SaveMail_pro.exe "\\Personal Folders\Inbox" C:\Temp\ /autorun

You can also create a shortcut on your desktop or have the Windows Scheduler run it automatically. See Help - The Command Line; or the "How to automatically save your mail" article.


SaveMail has been tested with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and may also work with later versions (e.g. Outlook 2007).

Portable Email

One of the most frustrating things about email is "you can't take it with you".

Oh, yes, you can import it into your new computer. In some cases you can save it, convert it, and load it into another email program. But it is all very messy and sometimes the email programs just won't allow you to transfer email between them. Ever been stuck with two (or more) email programs because you can't get messages from the old system into the new one? I have.

And what is with all of the different email formats? How are you supposed to read your email if you don't have that program on that computer?

Saving your email in a standard format such as text or HTML allows you to read it anywhere. You can take it with you. You don't need a huge email program. You can use Notepad or a browser. You can read it on a Mac or on a Linux machine.

SaveMail can now save email as plain text files. If the email was in HTML format, it can save it as a HTML file.

You CAN have your email and read it too.

Save Email Attachments

SaveMail Ver 1.00.0040 just hit the streets.

We're really excited about this new version as you can now save email in text format and save attachments as normal files. There is a new option "Output" which allows you to save your Microsoft Outlook email as MSG files, as TXT (text) files, or as DIRectories which contain the email message and any attachments.

We think it is a brilliant solution to saving your email in a totally portable way.

You can download it from http://www.gssezisoft.com.