Save Entourage Emails to Hard Drive: Complete Guide

Entourage is an email client that is developed by Microsoft in the year 2000 for macOS. Entourage is a MAC only product with no equivalent on the windows platform. Infact, Entourage is the email client and personal information manager used in Microsoft office for MAC versions 2001 to 2008, but later in 2011, it was replaced with Outlook. Entourage handles multiple types of data including emails, calendars, address book, task list, project manager etc. Like in any other email application Entourage mails are also prone to corruption and data loss. So to make sure that all the Entourage data is safe, the best option is to save Entourage emails to hard drive in an Entourage archive file.

User Query: "How do I copy my emails and contacts from Microsoft Entourage archive email to External Hard Drive."

RGE Files

Entourage database stores its data files in the RGE format. The .rge file can be opened easily by double clicking it if the file associations are set up correctly for the application that is ought to open it. RGE files contains all the emails, contacts, notes, events, journals etc.

Need to Save Entourage Emails to Hard Drive

Backup is a good practice for better computing practices. Entourage saves its data in a huge database. Each time you send or receive a message the size of the database gets added up. As large the database is, the chances of corruption also increases. You may backup Entourage emails folder to hard drive in order to free the space when there are too many files in the entourage database. Another important necessity to save entourage file is to avoid data loss in case of accidental deletion of data.

Backup Entourage Emails

It is recommended to shutdown all Office programs including office notifications before starting the process. During backup, if the database gets written, then either you will lose some data or there may be data corruption. It may not be always necessary that you could figure out corruption, sometimes you may be backing up a corrupt database file. And so it is recommended to archive Entourage emails or snapshot of older backups. The snapshot feature will allow you to go back to the file when it was undamaged and would replace it.

Steps to Save Entourage Emails to Hard Drive

Method 1: Backup Entourage emails, contacts etc

First, plug the external hard drive into an available USB port on the computer.

Step 1

  • Open Entourage.
    You may be in any part of Entourage, such as email, calendar, or contacts.
  • Click File
  • Then click on Export in the menu bar.
  • Ensure that the following options are selected before clicking the next arrow button in the bottom of the window to backup Entourage emails, contacts etc.

    • Export

Step 2

  • Make sure to select No, keep the items in Entourage… option.
  • Click Next arrow button.

    • Keep in Entourage

Step 3

Change the default settings as shown below.

Main Identity

Step 4

  • Click on the Save As: box and change the name from Save As: file to Contacts.rge.
  • Click on the drop down arrow near to the Documents Option and Change the Where: location to the External Hard Drive and thus archive Entourage emails.
  • Click Save.

    • Save

    Step 5

    • A Confirmation message will pop up when the Microsoft Entourage backup email is finished
    • Click Done

    The process to save entourage mails to external hard drive is completed.

    Method 2: Entourage Archive Email

    Backup Entourage Profile

    • Press on Cmd-Shift-H to navigate to the home directory in the Finder.
    • Click on Documents
    • Goto Microsoft User Data
    • Then Office [year] Identities
    • Inside the folder you would find a subfolder called Main Identity.
    • Hold down the Option key and drag the Main Identity folder into the external drive’s window.

    And export email from Entourage is complete and hence a copy would be made in the hard drive and you can access it.

    Backup Entourage Emails Selectively

    • Open Entourage
    • Choose the email messages or folder of messages that you need to backup.
    • Drag it into the hard drive.

    The messages would be displayed as EML files and the folders as MBOX files.

    Tips: Now if you want to import entourage emails that are saved into any other email client then use the Import function of any email client that supports EML or MBOX files.

    Backup Entourage Contacts

      The contacts can be exported for backup,

      • Goto File
      • Click on Export Contacts

      Note: In Entourage 2004, you can select to Export as an Entourage archive.

      Conclusion

      Microsoft's Entourage email client was in the Mac version of the Microsoft Office suite till the year 2010, and then it was replaced by Microsoft Outlook. The user settings and all the messages are stored in a "Main Identity" folder inside the home directory. Microsoft Entourage archive email can be done quickly by making a copy of this folder. Here in this section we have discussed in detail the needs and steps to save entourage emails to hard drive.

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