How to Backup Old Emails in Outlook: A Comprehensive Guide

How to Find Old Emails in Microsoft Outlook

If you use Microsoft Outlook to manage your email, you may need to use old email at some point. Some people like to keep records of multiple emails for personal reference and future use. Others may need to look through old emails to find specific information such as contact information, instructions or references.

To avoid old emails being automatically deleted because they have not been used for too long, many people choose to back up their old emails in Outlook to an external hard drive. But before you can start backing up, you may need to find your old emails.

1. Open the Folder menu tab and click New Search Folder.

2. In the New Search Folder window, click Old mail in the Organizing Mail section.

3. Click Choose and select the desired time period, for example Older Than 6 Months. You can choose days, weeks and months. From the drop-down menu at the bottom of the window, select the desired Microsoft 365 account in Outlook. Click OK to save the settings and close the window.

4. Confirm your old email after the search results come up. Next I'll show you how to back up your old emails.

2 Ways to Backup Old Emails in Outlook

If you want to backup old emails in Outlook, you need to create a new folder in Outlook first, and integrate the old emails you want into this folder. Then go through the two methods provided below to learn how to backup old email in Outlook.

☞ Preparation:

• Right-click on the left menu bar of the Outlook desktop program, select New Folder and name it the Old Emails Older Than 6 Months.
• Copy all the old emails you just found in the search folder to this newly created folder.

#1. Backup Old Email in Outlook via Import and Export Wizard

The safest and most reliable way to make an Outlook backup is to have Microsoft Outlook automatically export a .pst file for you. In addition to email, this will save contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes.

1. Open your Outlook, go to the File tab > Open & Export > Import/Export.

2. Then the Import and Export Wizard will open. On the wizard Select Export to a file and then click Next.

3. Then select Outlook Data File (. pst). Select the old email folder you want to export.

4. Then click on the Browse button to select a location where the Outlook old email should be saved. Click on Finish.

#2. Backup Outlook Old Emails Automatically via Third-party Software

Before you know it, you may be receiving a lot of important emails. If you don't want to waste time and energy exporting Outlook old emails one by one, you can try the professional file backup software - AOMEI Backupper. It can automatically help you back up newly added emails in Old Email Folder.

This powerful tool provides incremental and differential backup to help you back up old emails in Outlook, which can save you a lot of effort and time. It not only helps you save Outlook emails to local folders like hard drive, desktop or external hard drive, but also backs up personal data in Outlook including emails, calendars, contacts and other important files when needed.

Let’s have a look at how to backup old emails in Outlook using AOMEI Backupper. First, you should download this powerful software on your computer. For Server users, you can try AOMEI Backupper Server.

1. Open Outlook, and be sure you log in with your account. Then, launch AOMEI Backupper Professional and click Backup and Outlook Backup.

2. Click Add Outlook data and select the Old Email Folder in your Outlook account. Then click OK.

3. Click the second box to select a local path, network or NAS location, or cloud drive to store your Outlook old emails.

4. Enable Daily, Weekly,  Monthly, or Event triggers schedule backup and click Start Backup to backup old emails in Outlook automatically. 

☞ Notes:

• You can change “Incremental Backup (default)” to “Differential Backup” in Backup Scheme.
• Except for backup methods, you can also enable automatic backup cleanup methods in Backup Scheme. It’s the most effective way to resolve backup disk full issues.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you will know two ways of how to backup old emails in Outlook. These 2 ways also apply to how to export all emails from Outlook. The reasons why users have this need vary from person to person. It's good to get into the habit of backing up your emails to help you maximize the protection of your data.

While the built-in backup tool in Outlook is useful, it has some limitations.  Therefore, we recommend using the "Outlook Backup" function of AOMEI Backupper to create a more comprehensive and reliable backup for your Outlook data. It can help you backup Outlook pst files automaticlly. This will give you peace of mind and ensure that you can recover your data quickly should any unexpected event occur.