Windows Live mail

Hello flogit,

How important is it make sure you will always have a copy of the email?
Does the email provider guarantee 100% your data will always be available on their "Cloud Server"?

Personally, I don't trust "external cloud servers" 100%.
I keep a copy of anything important somewhere else.
At a minimum, I copy important emails to a LOCAL folder for "backup".

Email can be confusing with the different protocols such as IMAP, MAPI, POP3, ...
I've seen emails lost because of a misunderstanding in how the different protocols work with different providers, especially when multiple devices are used to access email.

I believe backups are essential for anything important, including all Personal Data and the OS/Programs "C:" drive

Hope this helps,
David

Hi David!

I'm probably the worst person to advise you on the best backup method...
I use MS Office Outlook 2010 (PAID) on my primary PC and store all emails I want to keep in a LOCAL PST file.
I backup the PST as needed.
That's what I do now, but it can be problematic for me...because

I have 7 email accounts, 5 Systems (devices), with multiple users per system.
Depending on the User/System(device) the access method MAY be different...
Add to that multiple email clients of different versions of MS Office Outlook, MS WLM, and Thunderbird on different devices...
I am my own worst enemy ! No malware needed here - it's self-inflicted wounds

Thunderbird only supports POP3 access for Hotmail/Outlook.com addresses.
MAPI is an MS proprietary protocol, so WLM is the best free choice for Hotmail/Outlook.com addresses.
I prefer the GUI/features of Thunderbird vs WLM, but because I do have MS email accounts, I use WLM for the MAPI capability.

My advice
- use WLM (MAPI) if you access MS email (hotmail/outlook) on multiple devices to keep them in sync.
- If you only use one device, give Thunderbird a try with POP3 - it's free.

POP3 and MAPI work differently, and that is important to understand so no emails get lost...