Archive Your Hotmail Email

Save your Hotmail to your hard drive.

By Greg Melton

On today's action-packed episode of "Call for Help" Chris is going to show you how to archive Web-based email so you don't have to delete all those old messages or pay for additional storage space.

Most Web-based email providers supply only 2MB to 5MB of storage space before they delete messages to free up space in your account. It only takes a single email with a large attachment to have your stored messages deleted.

How can you avoid losing messages in a Web-based email account? You can delete old messages to free up space, you can buy additional storage space, or you can avoid both these options by archiving your Web-based email. Follow the steps in this article to find out how.

Tools of the Trade

To archive a Web-based email account, we're going to use Outlook Express, a free program that comes installed with Windows. Outlook Express synchs directly with Hotmail (which uses the HTTP protocol) as well as other Web-based email providers that support the POP3/SMTP standard. Today we're going to show you how to archive Hotmail to your hard drive.

If you don't have Outlook Express 6.0, then you may want to consider upgrading to it. Outlook Express 6.0 is bundled with the latest version of Internet Explorer 6.0. You don't have to upgrade to Outlook Express 6.0, but you may need to follow slightly different steps with other versions of Outlook Express. Follow this link to get the latest version of Internet Explorer 6.0.

The method you use to archive your email after synching it with Outlook Express is up to you. We won't cover how to burn your Web-based email archive to CD-R.

Import Hotmail

To archive Web-based email, you should import your mail account into Outlook Express. Follow these directions:

1. Go to your Start menu, single-click Programs, and then single-click the Outlook Express icon.
   

2. After launching the program, go to the Tools menu and choose Accounts.
   
3. Click the Mail tab. This is where you'll be spending most of your time setting up the various wizards to import your Web-based email account.

Import Hotmail

1. Click the Add button and choose Mail.
   

2. Give the account a name and click the Next button.
   
3. Fill in your Hotmail email address and click the Next button.
   
4. In the Email Servers Name section, the incoming mail server should already be set to HTTP and the mail service provider should be set to Hotmail. Leave this page alone and click the Next button.
   
5. In the Internet Mail Logon screen, use your entire Hotmail email address as your logon name. Type your password in the Password box and click the Next button.
   
6. Click Finish.
   
7. Close the Internet Account window.
   
8. You should see a pop-up window asking you if you'd like to download all the folders in your account. Click OK.
   
9. Click the Send/Receive button to download the contents of those folders onto your system. The best part about Hotmail is that the messages remain on the server even after you've downloaded them.

Archive Messages

Now that you've downloaded all the messages to your Hotmail account, it's time to begin archiving them. Create a new folder on your Desktop. Name the new folder something like "Email Archive."

Find the email messages you'd like to archive and drag them to the folder you just created.

Here are the steps for archiving a Hotmail account.

1. Single-click the Inbox under your Hotmail account.
   

2. Single-click any message in your Hotmail account.
   
3. While the message you just single-clicked is active, press Ctrl+A to select all the messages in your account.
   
4. Click the Restore button in the upper-right corner of Outlook Express. The Restore button is sandwiched between the Minimize and Close buttons.
   
5. Reposition Outlook Express on your Desktop so you can see the messages you just selected and the Email Archive folder on your Desktop.
   
6. Click-and-hold any of the messages while they're still highlighted in your Inbox. Drag them onto the Email Archive folder. Once you see a little plus sign, release your mouse button to copy all the messages to the Email Archive folder.
   
7. Double-click the Email Archive folder to see if everything transferred correctly.

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