Well as always when you post you find the solutions right off... I guess before now I've always had to hurry to get this done before the sales guy gets back from lunch....(came in on sunday to get a head start with this problem (hubbie's business and I get in payment is lunch;) and i did look in the help before but this time i found exactly what I was looking for ... it was a really dufus help how to .. wanting me to practice the answers... doh ... but it gave me two tips.. first how to get the file saved ... n ot the way i had been doing which was exporting ... and i guess i will do it that way in future for back up too unless someone knows different as ive been running into problems with saving it to the server and had to do it to a flash drive... dvds were useless .. when i saved by doing backup and then just dragging it onto the dvd or server. so in case anyone else wants to know this is what i did. firstly on the first computer you go to file - data file managment - data files then click open folder .. then close outlook put the pst file from the open folder on the server (or where you want) by dragging (copying). then go to the second laptop and open outlook and go to file - open - data file then locate the pst file on the server (or from a flash drive or other removeable media) press open and the pst file will insert itself into outlook as another personal folders. of course now i have two sets of personal folders (two email accounts) but i also have two sets for the second email of inbox with that addy.. plus the third one with that addy ( little used so no revelant emails to be saved)..... I guess i can't delete the second addy duplicate .. I tried .... without reinstalling the account and i don't want to do that if it upsets the personal folder for it .... we will see how that works... anyways.. thought i would leave this here as i hate doing searches and then someone got the solution but your left wonder what the hell it was.... back to lurk mode....:) Tina F ree Expression Web Toolbar - Expression Web and Web Design Resources http://frontpage-to-expression.com/expression-web-community-toolbar.html Just posted new links to the toolbar - Make YOUR suggestions Will work in FireFox IE and Safari ************************************************************* You are receiving this mail because you subscribed to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To send mail to the group, simply address it to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To Unsubscribe from this group, visit the group's homepage and use the dropdown menu at the top. This will allow you to unsubscribe your email address or change your email settings to digest or vacation (no mail). //www.freelists.org/webpage/mso To be able to share files with the group, you must join our Yahoo sister group. This group will not allow for posting of emails, but will allow you to join and share problem files, templates, etc.: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MicrosoftOffice . This group is for FILE SHARING ONLY. If you are using Outlook and you see a lot of unnecessary code in your email messages, read these instructions that explain why and how to fix it: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v28/greg28.htm *************************************************************