Outlook Express 5 for Windows: Moving the Mail Storage Location

Summary

Because Outlook Express saves mail, by default, to your roaming profile, you may experience problems exceeding your roaming profile quota. Unfortunately, Outlook Express does not allow you to save your mail to a network drive. You can, however, point it to a different location on your PC. However, unless your PC is backed up, this mail area will not get automatically backed up. Use caution when moving your mail storage location.

Instructions

To move the location Outlook Express stores your e-mail in, follow these steps:

1. Start Outlook Express.
2. Under the Tools menu, select Options.
3. In the Options dialog, click the Maintenance tab. The Maintenance property sheet is shown in Figure 1.1 below.

    

   
   Figure 1.1: Maintenance options property sheet

    

4. On the Maintenance property sheet, click the Store Folder button.
5. Click the Change button in the Store Location dialog. When the Browse for Folder dialog appears, select an existing folder that is local to your PC. That is, the folder is somewhere on one of your PC's hard disks.
6. Click OK after choosing your store folder. Click OK to close the Store Location dialog. Click OK to close the Options dialog.

You will need to restart Outlook Express for the changes to take effect. Outlook Express will automatically move the data (mail) in the old folder for you.