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Back up your Outlook data.
Your mail, contacts and calendar live on your computer as well as on the server. This guide copies all of it into a single file you can keep somewhere safe — and puts it back when you need it.
- Takes about
- Ten minutes
- Covers
- Mail, contacts, calendar
- You need
- Outlook on a computer
- Creates
- One .pst file
Works in Outlook 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365 on Windows.
Why bother, if it is all on the server?
Most of the time your mail is safely on the mail server and syncs back the moment you sign in somewhere new. A backup matters for the times that is not enough — a mailbox you are about to delete, a staff member leaving, a move to a new computer, or a folder somebody cleared out months ago. A .pst file is a frozen copy that nothing on the server can change.
It is also the only practical way to hand someone an archive they can open themselves, without giving them access to the live mailbox.
Make the backup
Do this on the computer that already has your email working in Outlook. You are copying what is on that machine, so give it a few minutes to finish syncing before you start.
1. Open the wizard
In Outlook, click File in the top left. Choose Open & Export, then Import/Export.
2. Choose export
Select Export to a file and click Next. Then choose Outlook Data File (.pst) and Next again.
3. Pick what to copy
Click your email address at the very top of the list, not a single folder. Tick Include subfolders, then Next.
4. Choose where it saves
Click Browse and pick somewhere you will find again — Documents is fine. Give it a name with today's date.
5. Password (optional)
Outlook offers a password. Leave both boxes empty unless you have a reason — a lost password makes the file unopenable.
6. Let it run
Click Finish. A large mailbox can take a while. When the progress window closes, the file is done.
Now copy that file somewhere other than the computer it came from — an external drive, or your cloud storage. A backup that only exists on the machine it is protecting is not a backup.
Put it back
Same wizard, opposite direction. You can restore onto the same computer or a new one — the file does not care which machine made it.
- Open the wizard againFile, then Open & Export, then Import/Export.
- Choose Import from another program or fileClick Next, then choose Outlook Data File (.pst) and Next.
- Browse to your backup fileUnder Options, choose Do not import duplicates so you do not end up with two of everything.
- Select the top of the fileTick Include subfolders, then choose Import items into the same folder in and pick your email address.
- Click FinishEverything lands back in the matching folders. Inbox to Inbox, Sent to Sent.
If you would rather keep the old mail separate from your live mailbox, choose Import items into the current folder after selecting a folder you made for the purpose. Nothing merges, and you can browse it on its own.
The things that usually go wrong.
You are almost certainly in new Outlook, or Outlook on the web. Neither has the Import/Export wizard. Look for a toggle labelled New Outlook in the top right and switch it off — that returns you to the classic version, which does. If your computer only ever had new Outlook, the export has to be done from a machine running the classic desktop app.
Usually it exported one folder rather than the whole mailbox. Run it again and make sure you click your email address at the very top of the folder list, not the Inbox underneath it, and that Include subfolders is ticked. Check the file size afterwards — a real mailbox backup is rarely under a few hundred megabytes.
Something else has the file open. Close Outlook completely, wait a few seconds, and reopen it. If it still complains, restart the computer — a background sync process sometimes holds the file after Outlook itself has closed.
No. Exporting only reads. Your mailbox is untouched and nothing changes for anyone else using the account. Importing only adds, and with Do not import duplicates selected it will not create second copies of mail you already have.
For most businesses, before anything disruptive — a new computer, a staff change, or closing a mailbox. If your mail is genuinely business-critical, a quarterly export kept off the machine is a sensible habit.
We would rather you asked than lost the mail.
If the wizard is not behaving, or you are moving a mailbox and want a second pair of eyes on it, send us a message. We answer within one business day, and there is no charge for pointing you in the right direction.