Entourage archiving

Shut down Entourage. In your user account, go to the /Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities/ folder (replace 2008 for 2004 if that's the version of Office you're using).

Backup the "Main Identity" folder. That's your entire Entourage data. Emails, contacts, etc.

If you want to backup only certain emails, drag and drop them from the interface to the desktop. They will include any attachments. Back those items up. To bring them back in, just drag and drop them from whatever drive you have the individual emails on back into Entourage.

Kurt, the problem I face while dragging and dropping mail folders in and out of Entourage, is that the timestamp (date received, etc.) is lost on import back into Entourage.

Copying the Identities folder works well and maintains your mailbox folder structure. I use multiple identities to manage viewing of my archived mail (due to Exchange quota settings). Here's how I do it - http://blog.gingergeek.com/2009/06/how-to-archive-entourage-2008-mail-using-mult iple-identities/

the timestamp (date received, etc.) is lost on import back into Entourage.

I've never had that happen. Anything I've ever brought back in has the same date and time that it did originally.

Your link has nice information in it though. Especially for those using multiple identities.

Gotcha. I should have specified this is an issue with mbox files not eml files.

Can't say I'd tried that before. But testing it just now, I dropped a folder onto the desktop to get an mbox file. Dropped it back in and had a few odd things happen. If it was a reply to another email, that link was lost. A few had their times change, but not the date. Most maintained all of their same information.

A bit annoying that Entourage will only let you drop an mbox into an existing box. You can't place it in between any of the others.