Where Does Entourage Store Files that Have Been Moved "On MyComputer?"

[Glenn Beckmann]

Good morning,

Our IT dept and I have been struggling with this one for a while.. I use
Entourage 2008 and our company uses an Exchange Server. I have regularly
(manually) moved emails from my Entourage Folders on the server to folders
I¹ve created On My Computer.

A couple of months ago, my hard drive went kablooey. We recovered all of the
data from the hard drive but we cannot recover all of the emails that had
been stored in the folders under On My Computer.

Are these old, archived emails accessible still? If so, how?

I¹m currently using a MacBook Pro, running 10.5.8.

TIA.

Glenn

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Good morning,

Hi Glenn,

Our IT dept and I have been struggling with this one for a while.. I use
Entourage 2008 and our company uses an Exchange Server. I have regularly
(manually) moved emails from my Entourage Folders on the server to folders
I've created On My Computer.

A couple of months ago, my hard drive went kablooey. We recovered all of the
data from the hard drive but we cannot recover all of the emails that had
been stored in the folders under On My Computer.

Are these old, archived emails accessible still? If so, how?

Sure, they are stored in the Entourage identity itself.
It's in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities

You can move the whole folder to the same location from the backups for
instance and it should all be there.

Corentin

 

[Glenn Beckmann]

Thanks Corentin.

Sure, they are stored in the Entourage identity itself.
It's in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities

You can move the whole folder to the same location from the backups for
instance and it should all be there.

Corentin

We've tried that but when we open the (old) Identities file, my current
identity and database is used (including all of the new folders I've created
On My Computer). I tried replacing the new identity with the old identity,
renaming the old identity to my new identity and it always opens up in
Entourage as my new identity.

I guess there's no way to actually access the old On My Computer files
directly?

Glenn

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

We've tried that but when we open the (old) Identities file, my current
identity and database is used (including all of the new folders I've created
On My Computer). I tried replacing the new identity with the old identity,
renaming the old identity to my new identity and it always opens up in
Entourage as my new identity.

I thought you wanted to replace one with the other.

I guess there's no way to actually access the old On My Computer files
directly?

Well you should be able to switchbetween identities using the command in
the Entourage menu. It should list all available identities there and
you could go back and forth between them,

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

We've tried that but when we open the (old) Identities file, my current
identity and database is used (including all of the new folders I've created
On My Computer). I tried replacing the new identity with the old identity,
renaming the old identity to my new identity and it always opens up in
Entourage as my new identity.

How were you trying to open the old Identities? Did you use "Switch
Identities" under Entourage in the Menu bar?

Each Identity contains several files, but the database file is the one that
holds your data. You can check the date created and date modified along with
the size of the database to understand which database contains your oldest
data.

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities/Main
Identity/database

It's possible when your drive went kablooey, your Identity was either lost
forever by the Finder or it was put in an invisible folder called 'lost &
found'. Some virus software will also make the Identity invisible if it
detects a virus. My guess is it went poof.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/user_exp.html#user1>

If you didn't have a backup of your Identity folder, then use this
experience to create a backup strategy. Start with the links listed here:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/backup_articles.html>

Tip: MBOX files are great ways to store mail because it can be used by any
email client on both the Mac and PC. They are easy to create...just drag a
folder to the desktop. The negative is you have to import back into an
Identity to view.

Hope this helps!

 

[Glenn Beckmann]

OK... That's pretty slick. I hadn't learned the "Switch Identities" trick.
That worked, but...
The archive folders I had created in my old identity (pre-kablooey) On My
Computer were not there.

Any ideas where they might be?

I hear ya about the backup strategy Diane. Speaking of.... Is there a way to
take all of my archive folders I've created On My Computer and back them up?
So far, everything I've found is for archiving emails/folders still on the
Entourage server.

And... I really don't want to drag folders manually one at a time to my
desktop.

Thanks for all the help. I got further today than I have in two months.

Glenn

 

[Diane Ross]

OK... That's pretty slick. I hadn't learned the "Switch Identities" trick.
That worked, but...
The archive folders I had created in my old identity (pre-kablooey) On My
Computer were not there.

Any ideas where they might be?

You can try searching for "Main Identity" or "Microsoft User Data folder" or
"Office 2008 Identities folder."

I hear ya about the backup strategy Diane. Speaking of.... Is there a way to
take all of my archive folders I've created On My Computer and back them up?
So far, everything I've found is for archiving emails/folders still on the
Entourage server.

That's all in the link backup articles.

And... I really don't want to drag folders manually one at a time to my
desktop.

There is a script that will do that for you.

Export folders as MBOX files (includes subfolders)
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/downloads/scripts/jolly/Make_MBOX.zip>

Exporting as .rge will do it too.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The archive folders I had created in my old identity (pre-kablooey) On My
Computer were not there.

Any ideas where they might be?

I've never seen an identity that would open without ann On My Computer
section.

It has to be there on the bottom of the list.

I hear ya about the backup strategy Diane. Speaking of.... Is there a way to
take all of my archive folders I've created On My Computer and back them up?
So far, everything I've found is for archiving emails/folders still on the
Entourage server.

As Diane said, all you have to do then is to export in an Entourage .rge
archive,

Corentin