Saving Outlook Messages

There are several ways to use MessageSave to save Outlook email messages as individual files outside of Outlook. You can run it manually, or you can configure MessageSave to save messages automatically, without requiring any action on your part.

• To run MessageSave manually, you invoke it by clicking the Save Messages button on the Outlook toolbar, ribbon or right-click menu.

• There are three different ways to save messages automatically:

  • Whenever a message is moved or copied to a particular Outlook folder (AutoSave).
  • Automatically run MessageSave at pre-defined time (Scheduler).
  • Execute MessageSave from an Outlook rule to automatically save new messages which match certain criteria (Rules).

Running MessageSave manually

To open MessageSave, click on the MessageSave button, which is located on the Home tab of the Ribbon in Outlook 2010 or on the main Outlook toolbar in older versions of Outlook.

Tip

MessageSave is also available in the right-click menu in the main Outlook window.

You will see the Save Messages window:

1. Specify whether you would like to save the selected messages, or all messages in the current folder in the Messages to Save area. To save a group of messages, highlight them before clicking on MessageSave.
2. Click Browse to specify the destination folder.
3. (Optionally) Click More >> to specify additional options.
4. Click Save Now.

Next time you invoke MessageSave, it remembers the options you used previously. So if you are saving with the same settings, you can simply click Save Now.

Automatically saving messages using AutoSave

AutoSave (new in MessageSave 5.0) allows you to map Outlook folders to file system folders. Such that whenever a message is moved or copied to a particular Outlook folder, it is automatically saved to the corresponding file system folder.

If you have folders for your projects or clients in both Outlook and file system (local hard drive or a shared drive on a file server), you can easily keep them in sync.

To configure an AutoSave folder:

1. Open the Mapped Folders window. (Advanced Options -> General Tab -> Manage destination folder preferences -> Manage folder mapping).

2. Click Add. You will see the Folder Mapping window.

   

3. Select the Outlook folder you would like to map.

4. Specify the corresponding destination folder.

5. Check Automatically save new messages from this folder (AutoSave).

6. Click OK.

Now whenever a new message lands in that folder, it will be saved in the folder you specified.

Note

AutoSave only works when Outlook is running. If a new message arrives directly into that folder when Outlook is closed, AutoSave will not pick it up. To deal with cases like that, also configure a scheduler for the same folder whenever you use AutoSave.

Tip

AutoSave is a perfect feature to use in combination with our SimplyFile product. SimplyFile is a much more efficient alternative to filing email messages into Outlook folder using drag and drop.

Automatically saving messages using the Scheduler

MessageSave supports automatically saving messages at pre-defined time using the scheduler.

To configure the scheduler:

1. Open the Scheduler tab. (Advanced Options -> Scheduler Tab).

   

2. Follow the directions on this tab to specify:

   1. What options you would like the scheduler to use.
   2. Which folders you would like the scheduler to process and the location where you would like the messages saved.
   3. When you would like to have the scheduler run.

Warning

In most cases when using the scheduler, you want to enable “Do not save messages which have been saved before”, located on the History Tab of the Advanced Options window. Otherwise, a new copy of every message will be saved every time the scheduler runs.

Automatically saving new messages using Rules

MessageSave implements an Outlook custom rule action. This means that MessageSave can be called from an Outlook rule. You can create rules to automatically save new messages which match a set of criteria you specify. This woks on both received and sent messages.

To create a rule with MessageSave:

1. Create an Outlook rule that matches the messages which you would like to save. See the Microsoft website for instructions on creating rules.

   • For Outlook 2010.
   • For Outlook 2007.
   • For Outlook 2003.
   • Rule custom actions are not available in Outlook 2013. Microsoft has removed this functionality. Use Scheduler as an alternative.

2. In the “What do you want to do with the message?” step check the “perform a custom action” option.

3. Click on “a custom action” hyperlink in the “Rule Description” window.

4. Select “MessageSave” in the “Choose an action to be performed” drop-down box.

5. Click “Change...” button.

6. Select the options you would like to use for this rule.

   Note

   These options are specific to the rule. Different rules can have different options. For example, you can have multiple rules to save different types of messages to different folders.

7. Click the “OK” button to save the rule options.

8. Click the “OK” button in the “Select Custom Action” window.

9. Finish creating the rule as usual.

Please refer to Outlook documentation for details on creating and working with rules.

Tip

Using MessageSave rules is an easy way to save every single message you ever send or receive. To do that, create two rules using instructions above. One rule to save messages you receive, the other - for the messages you sent.

We recommend that you use the Use Message Date subfolder naming option in this case, so that your messages are well organized and to avoid accumulating too many messages in a single folder.