Many of us rely on the information we have stored in Outlook. To some, it’s become like a personal organizer. It holds information such as our important contacts and keeps track of our appointments and meetings. Losing this information could be catastrophic for some so it’s important that you back it up.

Outlook stores information in a data file called a “personal folder” file. This file has a .pst extension. The easiest way to back up all of your Outlook information is to copy the .pst file (Outlook.pst) to a network drive or removable device.

Outlook lets you automatically archive your data to a file called Archive.pst. Outlook places your oldest data into this file. To set up AutoArchive:

From Outlook, click on Tools and then Options, select the Other tab and click on the AutoArchive button. Now you can set your Outlook program to automate the Archive process so that the process runs every certain number of days. If possible, the Archive.pst should be stored on a network drive that is backed up on a regular basis.

If necessary, you can restore data from a PST file back into Outlook. Therefore, it’s important to include any PST files in your regular backups. If your PST files are not stored on a network drive that has a good backup strategy, then you should implement your own backup plan. One option is to copy all PST files, this includes the Archive.pst, to CD or other removable device on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You will need to determine which scenario is a good fit to your environment.