Overview
Microsoft Outlook saves your email messages, calendar events, tasks, and other items in either an Outlook for Windows Data File (.pst) or an Outlook for Mac Data File (.olm). This article provides instructions for backing up your Outlook Data File.
Considerations
Crashplan for Small Business users cannot back up Microsoft .ost files. For more information about Outlook Data Files, including why you do not need to back up .ost files, see Microsoft's Outlook documentation.
If you experience issues when backing up extremely large PST or OLM files, see Troubleshoot backups of Microsoft Outlook data with CrashPlan for more information.
Back up Microsoft Outlook data
If you have changed your backup file selection or moved your Microsoft Data File to a different location, verify that the file is included in your backup file selection. For the default location of your Microsoft Data File, see Outlook File Locations below.
On Windows, the CrashPlan app backs up the home folder, including the default location of your Microsoft Data File, by default. So in most cases, your email is backed up automatically and you don't need to take any further action.
If your Windows Outlook data is very large or you are using Outlook for Mac, see below for some further considerations based on your operating system.
Windows
The CrashPlan app backs up open files like Microsoft Outlook PST files using the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). This approach has a low impact on system resources and is fully supported by Microsoft.
For more information, see our full article about Understand and troubleshoot backing up open files with Windows VSS .
Mac
To ensure the database and all Outlook data can be recovered, export your Outlook data to an Outlook for Mac Data File (.olm) and backing up that file.
Outlook's Main Identity folder contains a database of Outlook data and many separate data records for emails, preferences, contacts, and other information. Microsoft provides instructions for recovering the Main Identity folder, but it may not fully recover all of your Outlook data, which is why you recover from an .olm file.
Outlook file locations
External resources
- Microsoft Support: Introduction to Outlook Data Files (.pst and .ost) (Outlook 2013 and 2016 only)
- Microsoft Support: How to Manage .pst Files in Microsoft Outlook (includes video tutorial)
- Microsoft Support: What is a Microsoft Exchange account?
- Microsoft Support: What are IMAP and POP?