What is the best way to backup or save Outlook files?

[jjaw]

I want to backup my email data to a network drive that is not on my Laptop.
When I tried to copy the files to the network drive it only made a shortcut
to find the file(.pst). I want to copy the actual contents of the email file
as it appears in Outlook. What is the best way to do this? I have also
tried to save email files(.pst) to My Documents but they won't open even if I
use Outlook to open the file. Why is that?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP Outlook]]

You'll need to clarify what you are doing wrong. It is simple to use Windows
Explorer simply to copy your Outlook data file to another location.