Retrieving Data?

[Katie Harper]

I wrote recently about losing names in my address book. A group that
once contained about 125 names suddenly only has 5 (perhaps Entourage
considers these the core people?) Since I got no response I assume
that no one else has suffered this problem (G4, 10.2.6). But now I'm
very nervous about continuing to use Entourage if this just happens
without warning or cause. Is there a way to backup the data and
retreive it again? (Rebuilding the Database didn't help.

Thanks.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I wrote recently about losing names in my address book. A group that
once contained about 125 names suddenly only has 5 (perhaps Entourage
considers these the core people?) Since I got no response I assume
that no one else has suffered this problem (G4, 10.2.6). But now I'm
very nervous about continuing to use Entourage if this just happens
without warning or cause. Is there a way to backup the data and
retreive it again? (Rebuilding the Database didn't help.

See my reply in your "Address Book Losing Data" thread. It's not a good idea
to start a new thread on the same topic. As you'll see, I think it must of
been all your own doing.

Of course you should back up your data regularly. A simple way is to
frequently back up the "Office X Identities" folder here:

[OS X Hard Disk]/Users/[your username]/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office X Identities

or the entire Microsoft User Data folder. That's where your database is.
It's a very large file, so that people who use a automatic system for doing
new backups of all "incremental" changes in files, such as Retrospect, will
usually have to schedule a "Recycle" backup every week or so so they don't
run out of space on their backup disk. If you're doing it manually, it's
probably a good idea to back up every day, keeping an "extra" from the
previous day and replacing the folder from two days ago. make your backups
to a separate containing folder - if you should every need to use one, drag
a specific identity folder (e.g. "Main Identity") to the correct location
(Office X identities) where the original is, renaming it so as not to
replace the original. You can switch to this identity in Switch Identities
in the Entourage menu after launching Entourage.


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage

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PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
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[Paul Berkowitz]

The address book contacts can be exported via the 'export contacts' item in
the File menu. This does not, however, save your groups. There is a script
that will do this (by allen watson) at scriptbuilders:

<http://www.scriptbuilders.net/category.php?search=export+address+groups>

Just a small [point that Allen's scripts do not recreate the
"contact-linking" of group members when you re-import them. They all end up
with the yellow "@" icon as simple name+email entries, which may not matter
to you. (The advantage of contact icons/links is that you can open up the
full contact from the group if you want to, and also that changing the
default email address in the contact also changes it in all its groups
automatically.)

I wouldn't go to the trouble just for groups, but if there's some reason why
you might want to export almost everything, including groups with contact
icons/links, from Entourage, my shareware scripts "Export-Import Entourage
X" from

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

will do it for you.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.