Lost all my emails, how can I get them pack

[pauly232145]

I use Microsoft Entourage for my emails and recently I lost all my emails, after I reinstalled Microsoft Office 2008 and I can't get them back because they are not on the email server provider I use.

However I do use time machine backups and I want to know if there is anyway I can get these emails back?

 

[agentphish]

Firstly, I'd suggest trying to get an email service that is capable of IMAP so you don't run into these types of problems.

Secondly, is there a reason you need to use Entourage (i.e. are you on an exchange server) because if there's not, use apple mail or thunderbird. Entourage is a bloated piece of crap that does a poor job of handling it's own email archives as you will see in the link I pasted below.

As I am unsure how Entourage interacts with Time Machine, I can't really answer your question completely however, entourage does store all of its stuff in one place, so you may be able to find the archive file. I think its in ~Documents/Microsoft User Data so maybe you can look there in your Time Machine backups.

Unfortunate:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/12/13/entourage-2008-and-time-machine-dont-get-along/

Good luck.

 

[izibo]

I use Microsoft Entourage for my emails and recently I lost all my emails, after I reinstalled Microsoft Office 2008 and I can't get them back because they are not on the email server provider I use.

However I do use time machine backups and I want to know if there is anyway I can get these emails back?

Just go back to a previous time machine state and backup the emails from there (you can just drag and drop to a group of emails and burn them on a CD if you want).

 

[pauly232145]

Just go back to a previous time machine state and backup the emails from there (you can just drag and drop to a group of emails and burn them on a CD if you want).

and how do I do that. Can you please tell me?

 

[merl1n]

and how do I do that. Can you please tell me?

I am very familiar with Entourage as that is the only program I use for mail.

Entourage keeps all emails and settings in a single database, located in ~user/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 (or 2004)/~Identity/...

Where ~user is your shortname and ~Identity is usually "Main ...".

In order to restore from TM, you should boot into "Safe Boot" mode so that none of the MS extensions are loaded (this would prevent you from replacing files there). Then use TM and go back in time (look at the database size to determine which date is best) and replace all of the contents of the ~Identity directory (Best to move all of the current items to the trash first before going into TM. Just don't delete them yet.)

You may lose some of the newer messages (since that date) and may have to convert the database again to support Entourage 2008 if they came from a 2004 database.