Essential FAX Software

Home > Technical Articles > Backing up your faxes

UPDATE: With version 1.75 or higher this process is much easier. Use the new option to "Make a Backup Copy of Your EssentialFax Files" which copies your EssentialFax faxes and phonebook to a location you specify (File > Make a Backup Copy of Your EssentialFax Files).


The information below remains for your reading pleasure, but with the introduction of the above option, is no longer strictly needed...

The user (that's you) part of the EssentialFax files is stored separately for each logged in user, and in the location specified by Microsoft. This allows separate user accounts on the same computer to maintain their own set of faxes and files, and it allows limited user accounts to use EssentialFax.

The program folder (typically C:\Program Files\EssentialFax ) does not contain any user files, and in fact under Vista and with XP limited accounts, files in that folder cannot be modified at all after installation.

You can open the base folder containing all of the user files by clicking Help > Open the EssentialFax User Files Folder on the EssentialFax menu. This opens a Windows Explorer window at your EssentialFax user files location.

User File Locations

The fax files, fax indexes, cover sheets and phone book are stored in the My Documents folder, in a sub folder called EssentialFax

On a typical Windows XP system, the full path to the user folders will be like so:

C:\Documents and Settings\User-Name\My Documents\EssentialFax

On a typical Windows Vista system, the full path to the user folders will be like so:

C:\Users\User-Name\Documents\EssentialFax

On a typical Windows 7 system, the full path to the user folders will be like so:

C:\Users\User-Name\My Documents\EssentialFax

(note: replace C: with your system drive letter and User-Name with your user name above)

To make a full backup of your faxes and phonebook, you should make a complete copy of this EssentialFax folder, and all of its sub-folders, retaining their layout. If you copy this entire folder and all of its contents and subfolders to a USB drive, for instance, you can import the faxes and phonebook back into EssentialFax (v. 1.75 or above)

User Folder Layout

The layout of the EssentialFax user folder is as follows:

\EssentialFax\Faxes\In ...contains incoming faxes

\EssentialFax\Faxes\Out ...contains outgoing faxes

\EssentialFax\Faxes\Enclosures ...contains fax enclosures

\EssentialFax\Phonebook ...contains the EssentialFax phone book files

\EssentialFax\Covers ...contains cover sheet templates

The best way to back up your files, is to backup or copy the entire contents of the EssentialFax user folder as specified above.

File Descriptions

The following types of files can be found in the EssentialFax user folder:

In the EssentialFax\In folder:

  • IN.DBF and IN.CDX - these are the two files that provide the index or list of incoming fax files and their descriptions
  • TRANSIN.DBF and TRANSIN.CDX - these are the fax transmission logs for incoming faxes
  • Multiple .TIF files - these are the actual fax image files. Because they are graphical files (like BMP or JPG files) they contain no information about the fax such as sender, fax number, etc.
  • Multiple .MFAX(Metadata Fax Information) and/or .ESSFAX files - these are the companion files to the fax .TIF files, and contain the information that the TIF files cannot, such as sender, fax number, etc. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MODIFY THESE FILES!

In the EssentialFax\Out folder:

  • OUT.DBF and OUT.CDX - these are the two files that provide the index or list of outgoing fax files and their descriptions
  • TRANSOUT.DBF and TRANSOUT.CDX - these are the fax transmission logs for outgoing faxes
  • Multiple .TIF files - these are the actual fax image files. Because they are graphical files (like BMP or JPG files) they contain no information about the fax such as recipient, fax number, subject, etc.
  • Multiple .MFAX files (Metadata Fax Information) and/or .ESSFAX files - these are the companion files to the fax .TIF files, and contain the information that the TIF files cannot, such as recipient, fax number, subject, etc. They also contain the cover page information for outgoing faxes. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MODIFY THESE FILES!

In the EssentialFax\Enclosures folder:

  • ENCLOSURE.DBF and ENCLOSURE.CDX - these are the two files that provide the index or list of fax enclosure files and their descriptions

In the EssentialFax\Phonebook folder:

  • PHONEBK.DBF and PHONEBK.CDX - these are the two files that contain the EssentialFax phone book

In the EssentialFax\Covers folder:

  • Multiple .MFCOV files (Metadata Fax Cover)- these are the cover sheet templates.
  • Multiple .TIF files - these are previews of the cover sheet templates.

The user files are not removed during uninstall, which is per the Microsoft protocol.

If you back up to a CD, make very sure that EssentialFax files are not marked as read-only when you restore the backup to your hard drive. This is a very common problem when backing up to CD. If the files are marked as read-only, EssentialFax cannot open and displays an error message that it is unable to open or create the data files.