Backing Up Your Windows Live Mail

From the main menu, click on the little arrowhead in the upper left corner, or hold down the Alt key while you strike the F key. The drop-down menu will appear.

From the drop-down menu, select Export email, or hold down the Alt key while you strike the E key.

Select Email messages, or Alt-M.

Select Microsoft Windows Live Mail. Click Next.

Click Browse and navigate to the desktop. Click on Make New Folder.

Click OK. Click Next.

Select All Folders or Selected Folders. If the latter, then also select the particular folders to be exported. Click Next.

Click Finish. Go to the desktop and right-click on New Folder. Select Rename. Give the folder a new name. Look inside the folder.

Each message is stored in an eml file. Should you lose all or part of your email in the future, you can restore what you have backed-up by using the Import function in Windows Live Mail.

Export Your Account Settings

You should also back-up your accounts. These are the settings that direct Live Mail to connect properly with your mail servers. It is a pain to set these manually, so

make a backup of them. The backup can then be imported when necessary, on your current computer or a different computer.

From the main page, Alt-F and then Alt-E and then Alt-A

Select one of your accounts (it will not allow you to select more than one at a time) and click Export. Browse to the desired destination folder and click Save.

Store on an External Drive

It is best to keep a copies of these backup files on an external drive or other storage medium. If you do not, and your hard drive crashes, having created these backups will do you no good.