SLOAN RANGER
Here is one very good and one superb program that will help you to back up your email messages
WANDA SLOAN
The brilliant MailStore software can be a bit cantankerous to set up unless you are using a standard email program, even for webmail. However, this is an excellent program that will ensure you never lose email again. |
I was literally a day away from writing a positive review of a good email archiving system when a kind Database reader (but I repeat myself) sent me a suggestion of a different program.
The second program impressed me so much that I put off, and then revised the whole review to get it at the top. I'll get to the very good software as soon as I tell you about the superb one.
MailStore Home is the free version of an application from a start-up company looking to get business archiving company mail. It is the most configurable, most powerful, probably most convenient such software - ever.
Here are the basics. You tell MailStore Home what email you want to back up, either on your computer or probably on the web, although there are limitations to backing up webmail.
Once archived to a hard drive, CD or DVD (a one-click operation), you can do three things with the email: Search it, including all attachments, probably faster and more comprehensively than the native program; restore it in case of a crash, and convert it from, say, Outlook Express to Thunderbird or Outlook.
In other words, you don't just have a backup, you have a full, on-demand email library.
The program is currently an 11MB download, and handled through Download.com.
As you install MailStore Home, it will halt for a bit, with a notice that it is "optimising". I'm still not entirely clear what happened, but the point is that you needn't be concerned about the pause, which seems to freeze the program while it does its business.
The program interface is modern and I suppose it's designed to be reassuring, since there is a photo of a flower in the centre.
You really only have two buttons to worry about - Import Messages and Burn Backup CD.
When you click on Import Messages, however, you get to the business end of MailStore. If you are using Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird, say, the setup is ready to go and you just click on the client's name to start gathering up your email for the archive.
I decided to test the limits of the program as much as I could, and told it to back up my Google Mail account that I use for communicating with Database readers. For that, you select POP3.
(A quick word. MailStore works with many webmail services - Gmail, Yahoo! and so on. It must have access to the accounts via POP3, a worldwide email standard, and so it will not work with Hotmail. Of course you can download Hotmail to Outlook Express, say, and then archive that.)
After you enter account details, there is a "Test" button to make sure MailStore can get to your account.
On the negative side, I was unpleasantly surprised by the lack of help for MailStore. This excellent and useful software may lose users right at the start.
Those who don't have, say, a primary Outlook or Thunderbird email program could have setup problems. There is no help installed with the software, and to call the online documentation sparse and dense is such understatement as to be praise.
Out of curiosity, I looked for how to set up an archive for Google mail. The program was no help. The online FAQ told me to use the forum, which doesn't exist. A search of the online documentation found a techie-entry after 25 minutes - really. I am going to help out MailStore folks by pointing to the help for webmail archiving, here: tinyurl.com/3m5s2k.
Bottom line: Brilliant program, best I've seen at any price, needs work.
There is no such thing as software that suits all people all of the time, and if MailStore is not - or doesn't sound like - a turn-on, here's a very good alternative.
Amic Email Backup has been around for a bit. For many readers, it will be easier to use, because it has ready-set-go buttons to import email from pretty well every program used by Database readers - the Outlooks, Eudora, The Bat, Incredimail and so on. For many of you, this will sell the program over MailStore Home.
But then Amic is a straight backup program, and wonderfully, powerfully good at what it does.
It doesn't just back up email. It archives the settings for your mail software - all settings, address book, rules and filters including spam settings, and even your tagline or signature files.
It will restore that backup on the host machine, or build the entire email structure on another computer - such as the new one your Sugar Daddy is getting you because of that great dinner the other night, or the laptop you want to sync for the conference in Singapore.
Amic Email Backup makes a single, compressed file, so you can't search it like MailStore Home. So while it is a bit limited, Amic is the best email backup solution available for most Windows users.
Amic Email Backup is from the nice folks at Amic Tools, which is in Transylvania in real life, but on the web at http://www.amictools.com.
Get MailStore where you would expect, at http://www.mailstore.com.
Email: wandasloan@gmail.com.
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