Backup and Restore

A checked version of this page, approved on 21 December 2016, was based on this revision.

As with all applications that contain important data, you should create regular backups of MailStore Home to protect your data. Learn how to backup your data and how to restore it.

MailStore Home data can be restored to the same or to a different computer as needed.

Important notice: File hosting services like Dropbox are not suitable for creating backups of the archive. These programs are accessing the archive data at the same time as MailStore Home, potentially corrupting the files and making the archive inaccessible.

Creating a Backup

Using the internal backup feature

Start MailStore Home.
Click Backup to HDD or USB in the Quick Access panel on the Start Page.
Select the folder where the backup should be written to. MailStore will create a MailStoreBackup folder in there where the archive files will be stored in.

Manually Creating a backup

To find and backup your MailStore Home data directory:

Start MailStore Home.
Click on the Administrative Tools item.
Find the Emails and Settings section at the top.
Click the Show in Windows Explorer button.
Close MailStore Home.
Create a copy of the files in a safe location such as a USB stick or network drive.

Using an external backup software

Start MailStore Home.
Click on the Administrative Tools item.
Find the Emails and Settings section at the top.
Configure your backup software to include that directory. Make sure MailStore Home is closed while the external backup software is creating the backup. No .lock file must be present in the backup.

Restoring From a Backup

In order to restore your archive from a backup, follow these steps:

Close MailStore Home.
Copy the backup to a location on your hard disk. Note that you cannot place MailStore Home data files under C:\Program Files\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\ due to Windows security configuration.
Click the Start menu.
Navigate to Programs.
Open MailStore Home.
Launch the MailStore Home - Configuration Start Menu item.
Click Choose Archive....
Select the directory containing the restored archive files.
Click OK.