If I Switch To Outlook Can I Back Up My E-mails?

Lee writes:

We currently have RR (Roadrunner)  which loads on our computer on Outlook express. I have XP and 2007 MS office which also has Outlook which I’m not using. My computer has crashed a couple of times in 13 yrs due to hardware breakdowns. I lost all my emails and saved emails. If we switch to Outlook within Office will I be able to save / backup these emails?

Lee, you could back up the files that you downloaded to your e-mail clients (an e-mail client is a program like Outlook Express or Outlook that downloads e-mails onto your computer) on any computer.  It’s very important to do regular backups on computers, so you don’t lose important information. Most computers crash at one time or another. Back up the files to an external hard drive, flash drive or to a cloud service so you will have them somewhere else should your hard drive fail. Outlook Express files can be backed up just the same as Outlook files.

Your Road Runner e-mails may not have actually been lost.  You were downloading those e-mails from a webmail account with your ISP, depending on how your account is set up they might have remained in your webmail account.  You can access your Road Runner account from the Internet from any computer with a web browser, whether it has an e-mail client like Outlook or not.

The good news is that you can import your Outlook Express files into Outlook.  Under the file menu in Outlook choose Import and Export. (In Windows 8 choose Open & Export, then Import/Export)

Click Import Internet Mail and Addresses and select Next. Choose Import from another program or file. Choose Outlook Express and then check the box next to Import mail and pick Next and then Finish.

It’s probably a good idea to import those messages into Outlook, so that when you purchase a new computer you can just import the Outlook messages into Outlook on your new computer. I bring up the new computer purchase since Microsoft is going to stop supporting XP in April of 2014.  That means no more security updates or bug fixes. Since you use your computer to access the Internet, I would be concerned about security should you keep using XP.

~ Cynthia