Backup and recovery is vital to ensure you do not lose data in the event of data corruption or media failure. It is best to back up your Windows Mobile database to a physically separate location to safeguard against data loss because of theft or loss of the device, or media failure on the device.

Most backup and recovery utilities are available on Windows Mobile. However, these utilities are not useful since you cannot use the utilities on Windows Mobile to store backups in a physically separate location (with the exception of backing up main memory databases to removable SD cards). Instead, data can be backed up by copying the entire database file to a desktop computer. You can also use synchronization to maintain an up-to-date copy of your Windows Mobile database on a desktop computer. See Understanding MobiLink synchronization.