To archive emails from a Microsoft Outlook PST file located on your system or network, you must select the appropriate Microsoft Outlook PST file and set the appropriate settings if necessary. Once a profile has been created, it can be edited at any time.

The "Archive Microsoft Outlook PST File" window is separated in several tabs, which allows a simple and intuitive operation.

File Information

On the File Information tab, you can set the appropriate Microsoft Outlook PST file from which emails should be archived. Basically, it is only necessary to enter the file information correctly in order to be able to archive emails from a Microsoft Outlook PST file so the other tabs do not necessarily have to be configured.

Microsoft Outlook PST File

In the text box, enter the path to the corresponding Microsoft Outlook PST file, or select it by clicking the "Browse ..." button.

Profile name

Enter a profile name under which the profile should be saved.

Email Folders

By default, all folders of your Microsoft Outlook PST file are included in the archive, but you can also choose to archive only specific folders of your Microsoft Outlook PST file.

Archive all folders

Determines that all available folders of the specified file should be archived.

Archive specific folders

Determines that only certain folders of the specified file should be archived. The folders are selected by clicking on the "Select folders" link, which opens a new window for folder selection.

In the folder selection window, you can include the selected folder by activating the selection box of the corresponding folder. The "Include Subfolders" option also allows you to specify whether any existing subfolders of the selected folder should also be included. To exclude a folder from the archive, simply deselect the corresponding selection box.

After you have selected all the desired folders, you can confirm your selection by clicking on the OK button, so that your selection will be applied.

After clicking the OK button in the folder selection window, MailShelf will automatically fill in the fields "Folders to be included" and "Folders to be excluded" based on your selection with the corresponding folder paths.

Folders to be included

Specifies the folders of the specified file that should be archived.

Folders to be excluded

Specifies the folders of the specified file that should not be archived.

Please note that you can select folders by clicking the "Select folders" link. However, the corresponding folders can also be entered manually in the "Folders to be included" and "Folders to be excluded" fields.

Please ensure that the entered folder names or folder paths are 100% correct and accurate, as they can not be processed otherwise.

In order to avoid any errors, we recommend that you select the folders using the "Select folders" option. This makes sure you are on the safe side when selecting folders.

All entered folders must either end with "\*" or "\", where the parameter "\*" determines that the specified folder and any existing subfolders should be archived. The "\" parameter determines that only the actual folder, but not its subfolders should be archived. Please enter the parameters without quotation marks (").

Filter

By default, all available emails in the specified Microsoft Outlook PST file are archived, but you can also specify which emails should not be archived.

Don't archive spam messages

Specifies that emails detected as spam or junk messages should not be archived. This option can help keep your email archive small and clean, but it also slows down the archiving process as each email to be archived is checked for spam and junk characteristics so the process can be very time-intensive. Therefore, activating this option should be well-considered.

Please also note that this option depends on the spam filter settings you have set. If you did not enable spam or junk email detection options in the spam filter settings, the "Don't archive spam messages" option will not be considered during the archiving process and junk emails are being archived. Therefore, please remember to set spam filter settings accordingly.

Don't archive messages that are blacklisted

Specifies that emails that match the set blacklist criteria should not be archived. This option can help protect your email archive from unwanted emails, but it can slow down the archiving process slightly, since each email to be archived is compared to the blacklist before archiving.

Only archive messages that are older than

Determines that only those emails should be archived, which are within a certain period of time or which have been sent or received at a certain time.

Date

Determines the date and time to be considered for emails. The corresponding date and time can be selected from the calendar selection fields. After determining the date and time, only those emails which are older than the set date and time are archived.

Range

Determines the time period for emails to be considered. The corresponding period of time may be selected by the corresponding selection fields, e.g. "1 weeks". After determining the time period, only those emails which are older than the specified period are archived.

Miscellaneous

The Miscellaneous tab allows you to specify advanced options for the archiving process.

Dynamic archiving

Determines that all emails are dynamically archived, which means that remote content, e.g. images and scripts are not embedded in the archived email, so this remote content must be manually loaded in the email view.

Dynamic archiving is the default method, which is also the fastest as well as storage-saving archiving method.

Static archiving

Determines that emails are archived statically, which means that external content, e.g. images and scripts are embedded in the archived email so that this remote content do not need to be manually loaded in the email view.

When statically archiving an email, the corresponding email is checked for remote content during the archiving process, which is then downloaded from the internet (if available) at the same time so that this content is embedded directly into the email to be archived.

Please note that static archiving will slow down the archiving process as every remote content of the corresponding email is downloaded from the internet to your local system. Depending on how large the corresponding remote content is, this can slow the archiving process enormously and noticeably.

Furthermore, it should be taken into consideration that external content may not be available at all and thus can not be embedded at all. Especially with very old emails, it is not uncommon that the corresponding contents were deleted by the corresponding server meanwhile.

In this case, this will also slow down the archiving process enormously since the corresponding external content could not be found and downloaded and thus ultimately skipped through MailShelf, which would then dynamically archive the email.

Therefore, activating this option should be well-considered.

Allow duplicates in archive

Determines that email duplicates should also be archived in the archive, but not in the same archive folder.

By default, all email duplicates in the archive are skipped, so that the same email is only archived once. However, when you enable this option, you can also archive email duplicates, which may be in the same archive, even if they are already in a different archive folder within the same archive.

Please note that an archive folder can contain one and the same email only once. Therefore, email duplicates which are located in the same archive folder will not be archived by activating this option.

User Assignments

You can assign the profile to specific MailShelf users so that you can control which user is accessing the profile. If there is no specific user assignment in the multi-user mode, only administrators can access the profile. A profile is not limited to one user and can be assigned to more than one user at a time.

The user overview lists all currently created MailShelf users so that the user can be assigned quickly and easily by simply activating the user's selection box.

A user assignment already assigned can be withdrawn by deactivating the corresponding selection box. Users can be added and edited in the user management section.

Please note that the "User Assignments" tab is only displayed if you are running MailShelf in the Multi-User Environment and you are logged on as an administrator.