Importance of Backing up Personal Address Books in Outlook
The Personal Address Book in Outlook helps you manage the contact information and email addresses that may not be contained in an Outlook contact list. Typically, if you are using a mailbox stored on a Microsoft Exchange Server, then the Outlook Address Book could be stored in that mailbox or in a Personal Folders file (PST file). On the other hand, if you are using a Personal Address Book, then a separate file is created that is only stored on the hard disk drive.
It is important to note that the Outlook Address Book is merely a service that the profile associated with your mailbox uses in order to make it easy the Contacts folder that may otherwise be stored in the Personal Folder File (PST) file or the mailbox as just an e-mail address book. However, the Outlook Address Book in itself does not contain any data that requires to be saved. If you would like to save data contained in your Personal Address Book, you should take regular backups of the same so that even if you are required to repair Outlook, you will not lose any of your vital contact details.
In order to ensure that the Outlook Personal Address Book is backed up properly, during the backup process, you have to include all the files that contain the PAB extension indicating that they belong to the Personal Address Book. In order to locate these files, you must first copy the PAB files from their location on the hard drive to the location or storage device where you will be storing your backup copy.
You can use the Explorer 'Search' facility to locate the files ending in PAB and having done so, you can simply copy the PAB files to the storage medium such as a zip disk or CD-Rom where the back up copies of the main PST files are. This way, even if there is any damage to the main PST file causing you to lose data from your Personal Address Book, you should still be able to repair Outlook and restore the details from the backed up PAB files.
Let us now take a quick look at how we can restore the Personal Address Book in case of damage to the main Outlook file or if we would like to transfer the contents of our Personal Address Book to another computer, like say a laptop. Begin by closing down your Outlook program and your connection to the Microsoft Exchange. Now from the Control Panel, you can go to User Accounts where you can view the Mail icon. When you click on this icon, you will be provided with some options of which you can choose the Show Profiles option. Select your profile currently in use and click on Properties. Now, click on Email accounts and select 'Add a New Directory or Address Book'. You will be asked if you are requesting additional address books - click on Personal Address Book and then choose the particular Personal Address Book files or PAB files that you would like to restore when you repair Outlook.
If you are unable to restore your Personal Address Book using this method either due to damaged storage devices or corrupt files, specialized tools such as Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen can easily recover Outlook data such as contacts.
It is important to note that the Outlook Address Book is merely a service that the profile associated with your mailbox uses in order to make it easy the Contacts folder that may otherwise be stored in the Personal Folder File (PST) file or the mailbox as just an e-mail address book. However, the Outlook Address Book in itself does not contain any data that requires to be saved. If you would like to save data contained in your Personal Address Book, you should take regular backups of the same so that even if you are required to repair Outlook, you will not lose any of your vital contact details.
In order to ensure that the Outlook Personal Address Book is backed up properly, during the backup process, you have to include all the files that contain the PAB extension indicating that they belong to the Personal Address Book. In order to locate these files, you must first copy the PAB files from their location on the hard drive to the location or storage device where you will be storing your backup copy.
You can use the Explorer 'Search' facility to locate the files ending in PAB and having done so, you can simply copy the PAB files to the storage medium such as a zip disk or CD-Rom where the back up copies of the main PST files are. This way, even if there is any damage to the main PST file causing you to lose data from your Personal Address Book, you should still be able to repair Outlook and restore the details from the backed up PAB files.
Let us now take a quick look at how we can restore the Personal Address Book in case of damage to the main Outlook file or if we would like to transfer the contents of our Personal Address Book to another computer, like say a laptop. Begin by closing down your Outlook program and your connection to the Microsoft Exchange. Now from the Control Panel, you can go to User Accounts where you can view the Mail icon. When you click on this icon, you will be provided with some options of which you can choose the Show Profiles option. Select your profile currently in use and click on Properties. Now, click on Email accounts and select 'Add a New Directory or Address Book'. You will be asked if you are requesting additional address books - click on Personal Address Book and then choose the particular Personal Address Book files or PAB files that you would like to restore when you repair Outlook.
If you are unable to restore your Personal Address Book using this method either due to damaged storage devices or corrupt files, specialized tools such as Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen can easily recover Outlook data such as contacts.