With so many important details of our personal and/or business lives archived within Outlook it only makes sense to protect one's data. Yes, it's possible to create backups and restore certain settings through Outlook's integrated utility but ""Back-Up Email"" makes it SO easy. Literally just a few clicks and virtually no learning curve. I definitely find myself creating backups more frequently now that I've discovered this helpful tool. In any case, it's integrated scheduling option allows you to automate the entire process if desired. Furthermore, you can include several important account settings that aren't available through Outlook's integrated utility. And if you use Outlook on several computers and need a convenient, reliable solution to sync messages and settings, ""Back-Up Email"" makes the task a no-brainer. As for ""Cons"", as far as I know, recovery of individual email messages isn't possible. Backups includes the entire lot, exactly as they were when the backup was created. Not a problem for me, but something to be aware of. The interface does however allow you to select specific categories of data to be restored which is quite useful. So all of that said, I'm sure there are other programs of this type to choose from, and I admit I haven't experimented with most of them. Still, I can't imagine that anything else could be easier to use or more dependable. $25 for a single-purpose proggy might seem a bit pricey, but when you consider the possible consequences of losing your email archives, the cost seems justified. Well worth your consideration!

I found Backup E-mail quite by accident in 2008, tried it out, and loved it. Since then it's helped me preserve and restore my Outlook Express e-mails, settings, accounts, rules, identities - the whole shootin' match - three times across three new computers. The current version is 3.0 as opposed to the 1.7 reviewed by About.com. It's pretty much all wizard-based, streamlined and very fast. Extremely easy to use. I can only find settings to restore Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail, along with Internet Explorer Favorites. It works on Windows XP, Vista and 7. All in all, a fine program.