There are several ways to make a copy of your Outlook e-mail messages, contacts, appointments, tasks, notes, and journal entries. There's Personal Folders Backup, exporting, archiving, copying your personal folders (.pst) file, and Net Folders. (If you use Microsoft Exchange Server you can also use offline folders to make a copy of your folders.) How can you tell which feature will do what you want to do? Here's a quick overview of all these features, to help you choose.

First, you need to determine whether you want to make a copy of all or some of your Outlook data and set it aside (backup) or work with Outlook files on two or more computers and keep the contents of corresponding files on each computer identical (synchronization). Use backup if you want to make a copy of a file to use in case the original file becomes damaged. Use synchronization if you want to work on two or more computers, such as on desktop computers at home and at work, or on a desktop computer and on a laptop computer.

Backup

Tell me about ways to back up my Outlook data.

Synchronization

Tell me about ways to synchronize my Outlook data.

 Note    All of your Outlook folders are stored in one file, called a personal folders file. It has the file extension .pst and is commonly called a .pst file. It appears in your Folder List and is usually named Internet Folders or Personal Folders. (You might also have a .pst file for archiving, named Archive Folders.) But, if you have a Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox, your Outlook data is stored on the server and you won't have a .pst file.