Tips to optimize time for Microsoft Outlook Email Recovery

If you use Microsoft Outlook and have ever noticed messages missing. You can save yourself a great deal of time searching for them. The data you have lost has likely been corrupted and can not be saved without software for Outlook email recovery. This software will scan your entire hard drive, locate your outlook PST file and rebuild it. The PST file is a writable database and often it suffers from spillage. Other problems resulting in a need for Outlook email recovery are failed compression and unzipping of files, anti-virus scanning changing file headers and accidental deletion. 

Microsoft Outlook is a very powerful and flexible tool. It has many hidden options, unknown features, and shortcuts that go unused and undiscovered by the majority of people. These are tips that will make Microsoft Outlook more productive and even easier to use.

Here are some simple tips to optimize time in Microsoft Outlook and increase efficiency.

1. Open a Outlook folder from the Windows without launching Microsoft Outlook

Create a shortcut of the Outlook folder that you use frequently on the desktop. To do that, simply drag the folder from the outlook to the desktop and hold the CTRL key before you release the mouse.
 
2. Launch outlook to any desired folder

By default, when you launch Microsoft Outlook, it opens up into the Inbox folder. You can change this default setting. To modify this, click the Tools menu, select Options, select Other, and in the Advanced Options box, specify the folder you want opened.

3. Advanced Find

If your Inbox grows huge in size, use the Advanced Find dialog box to narrow down your searches and save time. For Advanced Find, hit Ctrl+Shift+F.

4. AutoArchive emails in Inbox

Dragging and dropping individual emails from your inbox into the archive folder is a very tedious job. You can use the AutoArchive feature in Outlook to do the work automatically. To activate this feature, right-click the folder, click Properties and then click the AutoArchive tab.

5. Set Appointments

To schedule an appointment with one of your contacts, open the contact folder and click on the contact. Then drag the contact to the calendar folder. Fill in the date and time of this appointment.

6. Spell Check for all outgoing messages

Microsoft Outlook includes an option for spell check for all the outgoing messages. Just click on the Tools menu, click on Options, and select Always check spelling before sending.

7. Manage Junk E-Mail

Microsoft Outlook features a built in spam filter for unwanted emails. Open your Inbox by clicking on Inbox on the Outlook bar and click on the Organize button on the Standard toolbar. Click on Junk E-Mail. You can set the color for junk message or else move them to another folder.

8. Two Window workspace

If you need to work on calendar and Inbox all day you will require two separate Windows. To do so, display one of these windows and then right-click on the other. From the context menu, select Open in New Window. Use Alt+Tab to switch between windows.

9. Email Recovery

If you have accidentally deleted emails (using Shift+Del) or lost your Outlook emails due to any reason like hard drive crash, virus attack etc… try PST Repair Software to recover them easily.

Data Backup – Email Archives

Enterprises and individuals rely largely on emails to store all their personal, financial, business, and family information. All this hangs around in the inbox or email folders, ready to be accessed at any time. If the inbox is corrupted, or the webmail account is hacked, or any number of worst-case scenarios arises, you could find that precious data is gone forever.

All your email archives (Outlook Express and Microsoft Outlook) are stored on the hard drives. If a computer crashes, a virus attacks, or any program messes up the information on the hard drive, then all the important email information is lost. Don’t let that happen to you. To make sure you don’t lose all this in case of a hard disk crash or some other disaster, you can create backup copies of your emails.

All your mails, contacts, calendars, and almost every other detail you use are in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.  Email programs seem quite simple, but in terms of structure, folders, and information, they are quite complex. Each email program stores data in different places on your hard drive. Besides the messages in your inbox and your personal address book, your email program also keeps track of the folders you use to sort your mails, your email profile and much more. To do a thorough backup you will need to backup a variety of folders and files, but backing up your mail data is still easy.

The simplest way to backup information in you email program is to use a Backup Program/Software.  A lot depends on which email client you are using. The easiest way to transfer your email messages, address book, accounts and other information is with the help of a third-party utility that can back it up at one end and then restore it all with the minimum of fuss.

The other way to backup your emails is to simply copy them to another folder on your computer or an alternate drive. Below are the steps explaining how you can backup emails from Outlook Express and Microsoft Outlook.

Steps to backup emails in Outlook Express:

1. Create a folder on your hard drive, something like “OEbackup”.
2. Now, find the special location of the email folders on you hard drive.
3. To do that, from the Outlook Express menu bar, click on Tools-> Options-> Maintenance tab-> Store Folder.
4. When you click the Store Folder button, a window will pop-up with the path for the emails and email folders on the hard drive.
5. Copy it and paste the same into the Run dialogue box (Start->Run) and click OK.
6. This will show all of the items in Outlook Express Store Location.
7. Outlook Express folders end with the three letters DBX, simply copy them and paste it into the OEbackup folder first created.
8. You can also copy the files and folders to another storage media like a pen drive, external hard drive etc…

Steps to backup emails in Microsoft Outlook:

The Personal Folder file (.pst / PST) is the place where Outlook stores its data. Personal Folder file contains all of your Outlook folders, including the Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You may have a single .pst file, and you may also have an additional .pst file that you use to archive messages Below are the simple steps to backup your PST files. By backing up these PST files you will be backing up all your Outlook information.

1. Firstly, you need to find the location of your data files.
2. From Microsoft Outlook menu bar click File->Data File Management->Data Files.
3. Highlight the Personal Folders and click on the “Open Folder…” icon. Clicking on this icon will automatically launch Windows Explorer and take you to the location where this data file is stored.
4. Within the folder you will find an outlook.pst file. Copy this file to another safe location on the hard drive or to another storage media like a zip disk, CDROM, external hard drive etc.
5. You will need to completely exit Outlook prior to copying these files.
6. In case of any damage to the original outlook mails you can easily, import the .pst files from the backup.

Outlook Express

Outlook Express is an email client that comes bundled with Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher, and facilitates home users to access their emails. It is the successor of Microsoft Internet Mail and News, an early e-mail client add-on for Internet Explorer 3.0.  Built on open Internet standards, Outlook Express is designed for use with any Internet standard system, for example, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3), and Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP).

Almost every businessperson, employee or individual around the world begin their day with Outlook Express. They reach their workstations, sign into their account and download their emails.

The .dbx and .mbx files are used by Outlook Express for storing files. All files in Outlook Express Folder list are stored on our hard drive with the same file name but with the extension of .dbx for e.g. inbox.dbx. Together these are saved on a folder named as store folder which is located deep within Documents and Settings folder. It is a hidden folder.

Outlook Express has an automatic maintenance feature that is enabled by default. It is designed to wait until Outlook Express has been idle for several minutes, and then begin to compact your mail and news folders in the background. Well, these automatic settings can be changed under Tools| Options| Maintenance.

Outlook Express supports HTML e-mail and scripts. As a result, emails are commonly infected with viruses. Moreover, Outlook Express does not include a useful spam filter. But there are many third party tools and plug-ins that make up for that.

 Versions of Outlook Express

1. Outlook Express 4.0, which was included in Windows 98.
2. Outlook Express 5.0, which was included in Windows 98 Second Edition (SE).
3. Outlook Express 5.0 was included in Windows 2000.
4. Outlook Express 5.5 was included in Windows Me.
5. Outlook Express 6.0 was included in Windows XP.
6. Outlook Express 6.0 SP2 was included in Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Outlook Express is a clean, fast, simple and pretty secure email client. But, everything doesn’t go as planned. The outlook express fails. Outlook Express is prone to a number of problems which can corrupt its files database, especially when the database increases in size due to increasing number of stored emails and during database compaction. This has led to a thriving market for programs that can backup, restore and recover corrupted files.