If you’ve got a business email account then you have an asset that needs to be protected.  What would happen if one day you logged on to your computer and opened up Outlook (or almost any other email client) and it did not open?  Or it opened but it couldn’t find your email?

If you are using a corporate email system then you might be ok as the admin’s MIGHT be able to restore the email for you…but maybe they can’t because they don’t have the backup files any longer.  Or, maybe it’s late at night or on a weekend and they are not available.  Even if they did have the file and even if they were available to do it for you, the amount of time that it would take for them to locate the backup, and run it to recover your mailbox is staggering.

There has to be a better way…and hopefully it’s a no brainer, and oh yeah, free would be great too!

As it turns out, this week’s topic, Amic Email Backup is all of that.  It’s drop dead easy to use, you can schedule automatic backups and it is free!  Here is where you get it: http://www.amictools.com/v-amic_email_backup.html

The software is easy to use, and has two working modes, a Wizard mode and a standard mode.

The Schedule feature allows you to backup the email database daily, weekly or at any chosen time period. The email database can be saved on one computer and restored to another, thus making Amic Email Backup not just a backup utility but also a synchronization tool.

Once you have downloaded the Installer, just double click on the file that you downloaded and the installation wizard will appear. Follow the easy steps in order to complete the installation.

Creating your first backup is easy as well.  Just follow the Wizard which will walk you through the steps, or you can use the manual mode to select which email you want to backup and where you want to place the backup file.

Here is what the manual screen looks like:

My initial backup took over 35 minutes and resulted in a very large file.  (I have over 9 years of email stored) The options tab allows you to break the file up into “pieces” that will fit on CDs so that you could copy the files onto CDs for off site storage.  You could also take the CDs to any other Windows computer that is running the same email client (like Outlook) and Amic Email Backup will “restore” those files on the remote computer.

Now that is a great way to ensure redundancy AND to safely store your backups in a different physical location!

Give it a try and let me know what you think.  I’d also like to hear what you are using to back up your email.  Drop me a note in the comments!