While many people – hopefully most business owners – realise the importance of backing up computer data and doing it regularly, many people don’t realise that some files, such as emails, may require a different back up technique.
If you needed to install a new email program and wanted to still have access to the emails in your existing in-box, sent items, drafts, etc, would you know how to transfer these files over? And your contacts?
Or if your computer died and you had to rely on your backups, would you know how to restore your backed-up emails?
Truly, I’ve lost count of the number of times clients and friends have phoned me because they can’t find or can’t restore their emails. Please don’t leave it until you NEED to do these tasks before figuring it all out. If you don’t already have this figured out, I encourage you to allocate 30 minutes or so this week to ensure your email backups are in order.
The method used varies a little depending on which program you use to access your emails.
Here are some sites that provide a good, detailed run down on how to export emails and contacts from three of the most common email programs:
For all other email programs, please refer to the software’s documentation or support area for instructions.
You’re sure to have some peace of mind once you know your emails are also being included in your regular backup procedures.
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Sound advice, Donna-Marie. As a long-time “IT guy,” I’ve always tried to stress the importance of backing up the irreplaceable stuff, like emails. As you said, most people simply don’t take the time to prepare. I think this behavior is due to a lack of payoff: putting a lot of effort towards making a backup that will most likely never be used. They know they should, but it’s much easier not to and they’re willing to roll the dice, so to speak.
That’s also the reason why I gave up trying to get people to do backups and instead set about making the act of backing up as simple as possible by eliminating all the software and hardware necessary to backup. This is what I came up with:
http://fwdvault.com
and I’d love to know what you think.