I have long wanted to know how to back up my "mail rules" in Outlook
Express.
Past queries and searches have turned up many spurious (or just plain wrong)
answers and how to do all sorts of other interesting things.

I'm delighted to now know THE answer. If you have complex mail rules you may
be interested in knowing as well. Rebuilding them on a new or crashed
machine can take a very long time. (I presently have 57 rules - some
complex). A full registry backup does the same thing but less flexibly.

(With XP you have a transfer wizards available and with Outlook the .pst
backup utility should do the job. )

For OE:

Short answer:

    They are stored at HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Identities\{GUID}\Software\
Microsoft\Outlook Express\ 5.0

    The 5.0 seems to apply for OE6 as well.
________________

Medium answer

Once you've found out which GUID is which identity and you know which ones
you need to back up the rules from, look under HKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Identities\{GUID}\Software\ Microsoft\Outlook Express\ 5.0 for the Rules
sub key with the Mail and News sub keys inside it for message and news rules
respectively. The Filter sub key which stores details of any custom views
you've created is also here. The Blocked Senders list isn't in the Rules sub
key at all, it has its own key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
Identities\{GUID}\Software\ Microsoft\Outlook Express\ 5.0\Block Senders,
again divided into Mail and News. There will be a News sub key in Rules even
if you haven't created any news filtering rules, but there won't be a News
sub key in Block Senders unless you've blocked addresses or domain names for
newsgroups. You'll also find the Signatures subkey under HKEY_CURRENT_
USER\Identities\{GUID}\ Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\ if you've
created signatures for an identity with Tools, Options, Signatures they'll
be here as sub keys like 00000000 and 00000001.

To take a copy of your message rules, select the Rules sub-key: you'll see
that the registry editor shows the folder icon as opened and the full name
and path of the key is in the status bar at the bottom. Right-click on the
Rules sub key and choose Export (or choose File, Export - if you're using an
older version of Windows that will be Registry, Export Registry Key). In the
Export Registry File dialog make sure that Selected Branch is selected under
Export range (you don't want the whole Registry) and give the file a name
that you'll remember later.

You can put the files in the My Documents folder or you could make a Data
File folder to keep them separate. Do the same for Block Senders and
Signatures if you want to transfer those as well.

When you're just doing this once, to transfer your rules and other settings
to a new PC, it doesn't take too long, but if you start doing it regularly
as a backup routine you'll want to automate it.

_______________

Long answer


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fdirectory%2Fworldwide%2Fen-gb%2Foutrules.asp

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