Archiving depends a lot on personally needs.

For example, if you want to archive by year, you could sort a folder by
date, then select the first and last messages in the range and drag them
to a new empty OE folder.

You could then either leave the new folder in the current Identity, or
use one of the backup procedures to move the DBX files to another
identity or disk drive or CD and then delete from the active OE
identity.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"mcp6453" wrote in message
...
Yes, backup and archive are different. I am familiar with the backup
processes below. Is there a similar written procedure available for
archiving?

PA Bear wrote:
MVP DGuess, author of OE-QuickBackup
(http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx), writes:
QP
Backup and archiving are two separate things that people sometimes
confuse each other with. What it sounds like you are wanting to do is
archive the old message stores for possible later retrieval. Usually
archiving is a way to store the old messages, clear them from the
current setup and basically start over with empty files. Should you
have a need to restore those files, you can simply import them into
OE.

Backup is done in case you have a problem and need to restore the
data as it was.

Backing up files should be done in a way that you understand what and
where the files are, how long you want to retain them, etc.

Two different forms of backup (others may have additional plans):

1) Make a backup of the current data. (Backup1)
The next time you backup the data, put it in a separate folder.
(Backup2)
The next time you backup the data, put it in a separate folder
again. (Backup3)
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup1
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup2
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup3
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup1
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup2
The next time you backup, overwrite Backup3
&c.

You always keep the last three backups for that just in case problem.

2) Make a backup to a different folder for each backup, never
overwriting the previous.

One idea: I've got several clients doing now for backing up their
messages is to create a folder within OE and name it the month
(March2004) of the backup. They can easily copy just that one DBX
file and put it on CD then delete it from within OE. When they need
it, they can easily then make a new folder of the same name, open it
to create the dbx file required to get it in the Folders.dbx file),
close OE, then copy the backed up dbx file over the existing one
(removing the read only attribute) then restarting OE. Their messages
are there waiting on them then and when they finish, all they have to
do is delete the folder in OE. They won't be adding messages to that
dbx file so it's no big deal when they delete it.
/QP