in message
folders
in
You don't need one.
Create a normal Windows folder (not an Outlook Express folder).
Highlight the emails you want to keep then drag and drop them into the
new folder. Each will be an individual file with an .eml extension. Then
copy your new foldewr to CD, or back it up in whatever way you want.
You can restore individual emails by dragging and dropping them back
into OE, but simply double-clicking on any of them in your "archive"
folder will open them in OE.
I beg leave to disagree.
[1 - problem with "drag and drop" to folder]]
That procedure doesn't work for me for
more than a small number of messages.
(Am I doing something wrong?)
OE 5.5 uses the "Subject:" as the file name,
which causes too many "collisions" with
"Re: ..." and similar cases of repeated
"Subject:" headers.
And OE 5.5 isn't smart enough to just tack a
number on the end to allow all the files to be
kept, it puts up a requestor asking whether
or not to overwrite the existing file. This
(1) prevents the copying from
running unattended, and
(2) prevents the copying of
all the files without losing
some.
And, too, besides the problems of
(3) handling individual messages
one-by-one, if you have a lot of
messages, for instance from a
mailing list or news group,
(4) small individual message files
waste lots of disk space.
[2 - drag-and-drop to zip, problems]
If I drag-and-drop from an OE 5.5 "mail
folder" to an IE zip file, I don't have the
collisions, the zip file can handle multiple
files with the same name.
But
(1) I can't restore all of the files
at once, automatically, I have
to pull them out one at a time,
looking ahead and renaming
pulled files to prevent them
being overwritten;
(2) it's too easy to lose my place
when trying to peel out files
from a large zip with lots of
identical subjected "Re: ..."
messages and such (for which
reason I have a pile of
messages in a zip file that I
was never able to write thank
you notes for, -sigh-;
(3) I've had the unhappy
experience, once, in a
different context, using
I think WinZip 8.0
(registered shareware,
I think; sorry), of a large zip file
not unzipping, i.e. some of the
files that went into the zip
couldn't come back out, I don't
know why not, but for now I
can't trust zip files for backup
storage;
(4) but, if they worked reliably,
zip files would at least save
disk space, too bad they're
so clumsy to use for handling
large numbers of small files.
[3 - OE 5.5 "export" and "import" useless]
The "File > Export > Messages..."
only wants to export to
Microsoft Outlook, or to
Microsoft Exchange
neither of which is any help to me,
since (I think) I don't have or use them.
[4 - idx and mbx files from OE 4]
I've still got old mbx files, I think from
OE 4, and the mbx files are actually
straight text files ('8-bit extended
ASCII'?), with some odd garbage
characters between messages, that I
can open and read in TextPad 4.0
(registered shareware; sorry), but not
comfortably.
[5 - dbx files in OE 5]
The dbx files don't seem to be
readable in TextPad 4.0 (are they
maybe Unicode text, encoded in
16-bit chunks?).
[6 - AOL problems, too]
I had been using AOL before that, and
been unhappy with not being able to
archive its messages, then gave up on
AOL after the second time it died on me
and took its message store with it. (I
lost about 3 years of messages. I was
not a happy camper.)
[7 - web-based e-mail problems]
For a while I tried using AOL's webmail,
and others, but that was
(1) too slow (via dialup modem) and
(2) too clumsy to use, and
(3) I never ran into one that allowed
transfer of messages to local
storage. -sigh-
So, I too am still looking for a solution, ever
since OE 4 and before.
[8 - import e-mails to a database?]
There might be a tree-structured database
program that can import these messages
and make them both accessible and easily
archiveable, but I haven't done enough
experimenting yet to find one.
Any other suggestions? Please?
[9 - archive files to CD-R/RW ?]
Also, I'm still looking for suggestions on
the related problem of backing up files
from my hard disk.
Specifically, I'd like to know how to back
up a mess of lots of deeply nested
folders and files with very long names,
preferably to CD-Rs and/or CD-RWs,
and without having to "handle" each file
and folder individually.
My fault. I have been stupidly using the
long names as memos to remind me what
the files are and where/when I got them,
bacause Windows 95, now Windows 98
(NOT SE), didn't / doesn't have an easy
file annotation feature (that I know of).
I didn't guess CD-Rs and CD-RWs would
use a crippled file system.
Auwe! (Hawaiian for "Oy, Vey!" / "Alas!")
Worse, the one CD-R/RW writing program
I tried to use, I think it is Nero Express (not
freeware? Sorry), stops when it hits a
problem and doesn't have the smarts to
skip problem files and folders and just
archive the rest and leave me a note.
I think I tried to use CD-Recording Studio
2.0 (not freeware? Sorry, again) too, but it
wouldn't install, or I couldn't figure out how
to use it, or something. I forget what went
wrong.
Aloha,
