How to better manage your Outlook Express

Microsoft’s Outlook Express is the most popular email program, and for good reason. It's free with every recent version of Windows, and it's easy to use. Sooner or later, though, you're going to want to manage your Outlook Express email in a way that goes beyond basic use.

Q: How can I set up Outlook Express so that more than one person in my family can use it and so that all can maintain their privacy ?

Q: I use Outlook Express on my home computer. I want to copy a folder I created in a Outlook Express called "Jobs" to a floppy disk and take it to work, where I also have Outlook Express. How do I do this?

Q: How can I take my Outlook Express address book from one computer and copy it to Outlook Express on another?

A: Outlook Express contains a feature dubbed "identities" that allows you to set up multiple secure email accounts.

Once you establish an identity, you can assign it a password, and then in order to access the identity and email associated with it - you'll supply the proper user name and password.

To set up an identity, open the File menu in Outlook Express, click Identities, and then click Add New Identities from the submenu.

You'll be prompted for a name. Click the Password check box to set up a password for this name. Repeat these steps for each person who should have an email account within Outlook Express.

Once you have established all identities, note that instead of exiting Outlook Express normally, you should choose Exit and Log Off Identity from the File menu rather than Exit.

That way, anyone who opens Outlook Express will be required to supply a user name and password. If you forget to use Exit and Log Off Identity, you or someone else may reopen Outlook Express with- out supplying a password so long as the computer has not been turned off.

A: Taking just part of your Outlook Express email with you is not hard, but importing a single folder into an existing Outlook Express configuration is a bit trickier.

Here are the steps. First, locate the file that represents the Outlook Express folder containing the e-mail you wish to take along.

To do this, open the Windows Search dialog box by holding down the Windows key in typing the letter F on your key board.

In the field labeled "Search for files or folders named", type *.dbx, and press Enter.

Outlook Express stores each of your email folders in a files that ends in the extension dbx, so what you're doing here is locating all of the dbx files on your system.

Find the Jobs.dbx file in the list of files returned from your search, and highlight it. Insert a blank floppy disk into your floppy disk drive, open the File menu of the Search dialog box, then choose Send to...floppy.

The Jobs.dbx file you selected will be copied to the floppy drive.

Take the file to work. Open Outlook Express on your work computer. Open the File menu, and select Folder...New. Create a new folder called Jobs. Now exit Outlook Express.

At this point all you'll need to do is overwrite the new Jobs.dbx that you just created with the Jobs.dbx file that you brought from home.

To do this, use the Windows Search utility to locate Jobs.dbx on your work computer.

Once you've found it, open Windows Explorer (WinKey+E), log on to your floppy disk drive, highlight the Jobs.dbx file, and click Copy from the Edit menu.

Then switch to the Search dialog box, where you should see the results of your search for. dbx files.

Open the Edit menu, click Paste, and you should receive the dialog box asking you with you wish to overwrite the existing Jobs.dbx file with the one from your floppy disk, Answer Yes.

Now, when you open Outlook Express, all of your email from the Jobs folder at home will be available to you at work.

A: That's a relatively painless procedure. On the computer with the address book you want to copy, start Outlook Express and select Export...Address, Book from the File menu.

From the resulting dialogue box, select Text File (Comma Separated Values), and then click the Export button.

In the next dialog box, type a:addresses to signify that you wish to create a file called "addresses" on a floppy disk.

Select the Next button, and then select the fields (first name, last name, and so on) that you want to include in the exported address book. Concluded the process by clicking the Finish button.

Take the floppy disk to the computer that you want to copy the address book to.

Launch Outlook Express, and Import...Other Address Book from the File menu. On the nex1 dialog box, select Text File (Comma Separated Values) from the list, and then click Import.

Select the Browse button on the resulting box, and locate the file you exported from the other computer.

Click Open and then Next. Select the fields you wish to import, and complete the procedure by clicking the Finish button.

Last revised: 4^th November 2002 - .......... by C.K.Mohamed / Tellicherry