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If you own a smartphone (running Symbian OS, or Windows Mobile), there is a simple and free way to backup your most valuable asset, your PIM data, without you ever needing to connect to the PC and installing additional applications on your PC. All you need is an Internet connection.

Note: Ability to run Microsoft Exchange on your phone is required.

Sign up for a mail2web account

First,  click here to signup for a free mail2web account. This will give you a yourname@mail2web.com email address which you can use freely, but more importantly, it gives you a web based Microsoft Exchange 2003 account which will be used to sync all your PIM data.

After you have signed up your account, proceed to login here. One thing to note is your username is your full yourname@mail2web.com.

After you’re logged in, you will be presented with your Outlook Web Access Interface. Click on “Email Aggregator Settings” to view the settings of your account.

At the settings of your account, click on “View ActiveSync Settings”

You will then presented with your Activesync settings, which you will need for the setup on your smartphone. Depending on your choice of OS, follow the appropriate guide below.

Symbian Setup

First, you must download and install Mail for Exchange application for the Nokia smartphone. Natively Symbian OS does not support Microsoft Exchange, so Nokia released this free application to fill this gap.

Download - Select the Mail for Exchange X.X.X (SISX XXXMB)

Installation is straight forward. One method is to install Nokia PC Suite, connect your phone to your PC either through the supplied USB cable or bluetooth, double click on the downloaded application and the installation process will carry on. Alternative, you can just transfer the downloaded file to your phone and execute it to carry out the installation without the need to install Nokia PC Suite.

Once the application is installed, follow this tutorial from Step 3 - 5. The following screenshots are for your reference. (Read from left to right, then down)

The setup is pretty straight forward if you follow the tutorial link given. To explain some of mine decision, I always believe my contacts is most up to date on my phone, so I set “Phone Wins” for any conflict. I have also set all the PIM synchronization to “Keep items on Phone” for initial sync. I may get duplicates for this option, but it shouldn’t be a problem if your phone contacts is empty. Finally one very important point to note is Sync schedule. Unless you’re own a unlimited wireless plan, set both Peak and Off-peak sync to Manual.

Basically many of the settings are pretty straight forward and my recommendations are by no way the “correct” settings, but should be fine for most people. Feel free to play around if you’re comfortable with what you’re doing. You don’t even have to sync email if PIM backup is all you’re looking for.

Windows Mobile Setup

If you’re using Windows Mobile, then Exchange support is built in. Follow this guide, starting from Step 2.

Conclusion

Backing up your PIM data is essential, especially your contacts. In the past, there wasn’t much choice for you to backup your phone contacts as the option was limited to the phone’s bundled software application or your SIM card backup. So don’t wait until your phone is lost before you start regretting. It will only take 20 minutes of your time.

If your phone doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange, you may like to check out ZYB, which offers much more than just basic PIM backup. Personally, my contacts are backed up at both mail2web and ZYB.