iCloud is a NIGHTMARE with Outlook

AlegnaTtocs wrote:

If you had autoarchive set in Outlook you may be able to restore using that

I do, and I don't have any problems, why are you replying to me?

Just be EXTREMELY careful doing any of the things suggested above; you have a good chance of destroying or duplicating your data. I suggest that you back up your Outlook .pst and the iCloud data first and be very clear about how to recover from that. Some formatting will not survive the change even if you are successful. I have almost finished getting rid of iCloud but I think I have ended up with duplicates of 1,200 contacts. Getting into iCloud was a very, very major disaster for me. I think iCloud is supposed to reinstate the data on uninstalling it but I cannot find anywhere that categorically states this and I just didn't have the courage to try it because if I lose that data by business is in trouble. I also don't have a backup in Outlook .pst because iCloud emptied it.

If you keep backups nothing can be lost.

First job. Backup!

A business without a backup? do your clients know that you do not bother to protect your business data?

Yes, I do back up data in four different places on a server, external hard drives and the internet, but iCloud destroys these backups by emptying the Outlook.pst, which is then backed up empty. I couldn't determine how to reliably back up iCloud, - maybe there is a way but I didn't readily see it because I no longer hold the data.I also have a cascading archive system, but iCloud destroyed that because the empty folders don't go into archive so they gradually go out of date. Maybe it was all still backed up, maybe it wasn't, I couldn't tell, it kept me awake at night. Anyway. When I exhorted people to back up their data, they also need to read the backup and make sure that it actually contains everything they think it does, my backups were empty. I am out of all that now and I know where all my backups are. Maybe iCloud works, but it would require a lot of in depth research to work out where everything is and how it is all being managed. All I need now is a new way to sync my calendar with my other devices. I would point out that for those of us with data on the Cloud in any form, that data no longer really belongs to you and if the data manager had a problem, went bankrupt or was otherwise required to delete, filter or move data, they have no solid obligation to keep it for you. Your own server data can be managed but your Cloud data is ephemeral and beyond your control.

Then they are not being backed up, your pst file is the data store it is not a backup.

So, do you have a real backup, one from before whatever has been done to this installation occurred. There are multiple methods of backing up Outlook in Windows (including 2 built in to Outlook and 1 built in to Windows)

How did you backup?

PS: I think the odds on Apple going into bankruptcy are rather long.

It is not that easy, but I'm always ready to learn. Outlook, insofar as I am aware, has no facility to back up the .pst file. MS's advice is to manually copy the .pst file to another location and back up that location, in other words, Outlook has no solution; I can work out all by myself that I need to copy it but copying isn't really the same a backing up and anyway, doing it this way means the backup is always out of date.

Moreover, there is no way to automate the backup while the .pst file is open. For example, Memeo backs up my data to an external drive automatically but it cannot deal with the .pst file if it is open in Outlook, which it always is, so, to stop the perpetual error messages, I have excluded it. Windows backup works even less well for .psts, it just says backup failed then you have to dig around and find out why and then try to work out if your .pst file got updated despite the error message. My data is also continuously backed up on the internet via Carbonite but this also cannot backup an open .pst file because it is constantly changing, so I have it back up only the last version of the .pst that was manually copied from the active .pst. Consequently, the .pst backup only happens when I copy it out, and because I only do this intermittently it is always out of date.

Ideally, the .pst file would copy itself to a location capable of being automatically backed up on closing Outlook, then it would be backed up at the next logon, but I can see no way to make that happen.

I haven't come across a way around this, but I am open to suggestion from those who know better.

I don't think Apple will go bust any time soon but just be aware that once your data is in the Cloud in any form there is no absolute obligation for the host to maintain it or to keep it private. Probably, we will all be OK, but, until legislation concerning Cloud data ownership and access is more robust, better to keep your data with you and back it up remotely, not the other way around.

It's called Archive, and the command is on Outlook's file menu. Or you could export (also on Outlook's file menu I believe) If you dig around in Outlook's options you will find the setup controls for Automatic archiving. All of the other reasons why you don't have a backup (what is wrong with Windows Backup, or any of the dozens of utilities for backing up Windows) don't count when you lose data.

Here is screenshot of Outlook's manual archive setup.

And you can backup iCloud data as easily as you can backup any other data. It all has a local presence.

Good luck.

And here is the setup screen for Outlook's automatic archive option.

Thank you so much for your assistance and interest. This is probably getting to not belong in the iCloud thread. However...

I already use a 14 day archive, and this is set to cascade into another archive after 12 months to stop the archive file getting too big and slowing down Outlook opening. I archive all emails forever but they cannot be kept in one file because it gets too big to operate effectively. This isn't really a backup though, and it is still 14 days old, it still cannot be backed up while it is held open in Outlook and it still needs to be copied out someplace else but maybe, because it is actually still open in Outlook but not being written to during the day it could maybe be backed up by Memeo and Carbonite, I shall experiment, I expect it not to work.

The backup feature that used to work in Outlook 2010 is no longer supported and does not function, it does apparently for earlier versions. However, there is a group out there who are working up a way to reactivate it and another that requires fiddling the registry, which frightens me a little so I haven't done that. Meanwhile I have found an application called ABF Outlook Backup. ABF at least realise thee is a problem here. It copies the .pst file when Outlook closes and then a backup can be probably set on that because it will not be open in the next session, so the backup is only yesterday's data, which is fine. I have no idea if it works and it costs $$s. I shall report back.

You are right that iCloud has a local presence; I noticed that it relocated my Outlook data to its own location and I considered trying to relocate that to my Outlook folder but decided it would crash iCloud because it lived in an iCloud app folder and probably couldn't be moved. Maybe this could have been backed up if Outlook didn't hold it open but I just didn't understand enough about how iCloud managed its data to do that with confidence. I don't know, and anyway, I have ditched iCloud and put my Outlook data safely back together again so that is now history, it was an interesting diversion and I hope I learned something.

So, my next steps are to see if :

• A backup can be set on an archive.pst while open in Outlook any more succesfuly than a Personal folders.pst.
• ABF Outlook Backup actually does something useful.
• Keep an eye on the hackers trying to make Outlook 2010 backup work again, but I suspect MS had good reasons to close it down and it shouldn't be reactivated.

Set to 1 day instead of 14.

Any pst can be backed up provided that it is not open in Outlook (although even then it can still be backed up, look up Windows 'Shadow Copy')

All you are doing is reaffirming why I stay far away from Outlook, but even though I only use it for investigating other peoples problems I do know that without a real backup (not a house of cards) you will eventually lose data. Outlooks database is awful.

Use Windows backup to create regular images, put the images somewhere safe. Investigate Shadow Copies.