Backup mailbox

The mailbox backup and restore feature is intended primarily for use by system technicians. It allows you to create all the mailboxes for a customer ahead of time, on a system back at the office (even using the demo version of the software) and then transfer them wholesale to the customer's system at install time. You simply back them all up into a single file on the office system, copy the file over to the customer's system, and then restore the backup file.

This feature can also be used to archive a mailbox before it is deleted (such as when an employee leaves the company).

Warning: This feature is not intended for use in disaster recovery. It only backs up basic mailbox information, not the entire system. Also, restoration can overwrite files used by other mailboxes in the system.

To backup a mailbox, right-click on the mailbox and select Backup from the context menu. To backup multiple mailboxes, hold down the Ctrl or Shift key while selecting mailboxes in the list (or press Ctrl-A to select them all), then right-click on any of the highlighted mailboxes and select Backup. Either way, the Mailbox Backup dialog will be displayed, as shown below.

As shown, the dialog will suggest a filename and location based on the mailbox(es) you selected; the default location is the root of the C drive. To change the location where the backup file will be written, click the box labeled ... to open the Browse for Folder dialog.

You cannot change the name of the file, only the location where it will be stored. Browse to the folder where you want the file saved and click OK. You will be returned to the Mailbox Backup dialog and the Location to save setting will be updated to show the path you selected.

Below the Location to save setting is a checkbox labeled Include Messages. Check this box if you want to backup all messages in the mailbox. As stated in the dialog, doing this can take a long time and use up a fair amount of disk space if the number of messages is large.

Click OK to proceed with the backup or Cancel to close the dialog without performing a backup. When it finishes, the file will be deposited in the selected location.