Windows Live Mail - Backup & Restore

Welcome to the Freeola Internet customer support pages. This guide is designed to help with ensuring that you fully back up your mail client, Windows Live Mail, should you need to upgrade your mail service.

This guide is for the Windows 7 version of Mail. At time of writing it is not possible to automatically backup all mail at once using the Windows 10 and 11 version of this software.

Windows 7

1. Open up Windows Live Mail.

2. From the File menu, select Export Mail then Email Messages.
   

3. The first screen will ask you to specify which format you wish to export your mail to, from the list please select Microsoft Windows Live Mail and press Next.
   

4. The next screen will ask you to specify a location to where your messages will be backed up to, use the Browse button to navigate through files and folders on your computer. Please ensure that you back your messages up to a safe location such as your 'Documents' folder. Please ensure that you specify an empty directory.
   Press Next.

5. The next screen will ask you to select the folders that you wish to back-up, select the relevant folders or click All Folders. Once you have done so, press the Next button.

6. The Export process will now start, please be patient as the process can take a while depending on how many messages you have.
   Click Finish to complete the process.
   

Your messages will now be backed up, should you need to delete the account.

1. Open up Windows Live Mail.

2. Select Contacts from the menu at the bottom left corner of the screen.
   

3. From the top toolbar, select Export and click Comma Separated Values (.CSV).

4. The first page of the wizard will ask you to specify a location to save your backed up Address Book. Please select a safe directory, such as your Documents folder.
   Press Next.
   

5. The next page will ask you which details you wish to store, select the fields that you require and press Finish.

Once complete your Address Book will have been saved to the location specified.

Windows 7

1. Open up Windows Live Mail.

2. From the File menu, select Import Messages.
   

3. The first screen will ask you to specify which format you wish to import your mail from, from the list please select Microsoft Windows Live Mail and press Next.
   

4. The next screen will ask you to specify the location where your messages stored, use the Browse button to navigate through files and folders on your computer. This location will be the same place that you backed up your messages to a short time ago.

5. The next screen will ask you to select the folders that you wish to restore, select the relevant folders or click All Folders. Once you have done so, press the Next button.
   

6. The Import process will now start, please be patient as the process can take a while depending on how many messages you have. Once this is complete, click Finish.

Your mail will now have been restored, you can find your messages under 'Storage folders' -> 'Imported Folder'.

1. Open up Windows Live Mail.

2. Select Contacts from the menu at the bottom left corner of the screen.
   

3. From the top toolbar, select Import and click Comma Separated Values (.CSV).

4. The first page of the wizard will ask you to specify a location to where your Address Book is currently backed up. Press Next when you have located the file.
   

5. The next page will ask you which details you wish to restore, select the fields that you require and press Finish.
   

Your address book will now have been imported and can be found from the left hand side menu within Live Mail.