many thanks burrwalnut.
when i tried to export my inbox to external drive, i selected format as 'microsoft windows mail' as i use that program other than outlook. then i selected inbox and the destination folder on my external, but immediatly the dialogue box saying 'export has failed' came up suggesting there may be corrupt files or not enough space (there is plenty of space)i'm trying to export. there are 1,000+ emails how could i identify which were causing the probs?
is there any other way of archiving these mails by copying and pasting the files directly to my external?
thanks again for your help.