Transferring Email to Outlook's Local Folders

This documentation page covers transferring your Whitman email to personal folders on your computer using Microsoft Outlook 2003. 

Setting Up Microsoft Outlook On Your Computer

If you haven't already done so, you'll need to set-up Outlook to talk to your Whitman email account.  Once you have done this, you'll be able to follow the rest of the instructions on this page.

Preparing to Back Up your Whitman Email

Before you back up your Whitman email by transferring your mail onto your computer with Microsoft Outlook, make sure you delete all e-mails and folders that you do not want to save. This will decrease the amount of work you need to do to back up your e-mails and decrease the time it will take to transfer your emails onto your computer.

Backing Up your Whitman Email

1. Open Microsoft Outlook to access your Whitman email account.
2. The left pane of the Microsoft Outlook Window has the heading "Mail." Under this heading are two boxes, the lower of which has the heading "All Mail Folders." These folders are divided into those that are stored on your hard-drive under "Personal Folders" and those that are stored on the Whitman mail server under "securemail2@whitman.edu". To back up your Whitman email onto your computer, you must transfer the content of the folders in "securemail2@whitman.edu" to the folders under "Personal Folders."
3. To do so, first create a new folder under "Personal Folders" by clicking on "Personal Folders"; then click on File >>> New Folder. Give this folder an appropriate name, such as "My Whitman Email". (Warning: We recommend against using Outlook's drag-and-drop function to transfer your email, as it can easily lead to accidental deletion of mail.)
4. Next, go down to the botton of the "All Mail Folders" box to the folder called "securemail2@whitman.edu". If it is not already expanded, click the "+" sign to the left of the folder to expand it. Click on the sub-folder "Inbox" under the "securemail2@whitman.edu" folder. Now go to the Tools menu and click IMAP Folders. Uncheck the box at the bottom of the window for the option "When displaying hierarchy in outlook, show only subscribed folders." This will make Outlook display all your webmail folders under "securemail2@whitman.edu" rather than just the Inbox and Junk-mail folders. If you only want to backup email from your inbox and not from any other folders you have created on webmail, then you should skip this step.
5. For any folder under securemail2@whitman.edu that you would like to back up, right click on that folder and select Copy "Folder Name". A window will pop up asking you which folder you would like to copy-and-paste the selected folder into. Click on the new folder you just created under "Personal Folders," then click OK. Repeat this process for any webmail folders you would like to back up onto your computer.

   

 

Viewing your Email

Now that you've backed up your Whitman email onto your computer, you may go back any time to view your old emails. To do so, all you need to do is open up Microsoft Outlook and your backed-up Whitman mail will be accessible in the folder into which you just transferred it. Even after you are no longer able to access your Whitman email account, anything you've stored in Microsoft Outlook under "Personal Folders," since it is stored on your computer, will remain available.