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Summary: Outlook's PST or Personal STore is a single file that holds your email, contacts and more. You can use Outlook itself to find the location of the file.
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I need to backup or make a copy of my mail folders in Outlook,
which as you know are stored in something called a "PST" file. I've looked
everywhere and can't find it. Where does Outlook hide my email? Where does
Outlook keep my PST file?
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PST stands for "Personal STore" - as in your personal mail storage. PST files are really fairly complex databases that contain your mail, your calendar, your contacts and even more, when you use Microsoft Office's Outlook mail program.
The default location has changed a time or two over the years, but mostly because the default location of many things changed between Windows 9x and Windows NT/XP and later. And of course there's always a chance that your PST is stored in some other, non-default, location.
Rather than telling you where the default location is, let's use Outlook itself to tell you the exact path of your PST file.
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I'm using Outlook 2003, but the technique is similar for Outlook XP and Outlook 2000.
The easiest and quickest way I know of is to open the "tree view" of your folders, if you haven't already:
Each top level item, normally called "Personal Folders", or "Outlook Today", represents a separate PST. Right click on it and then select Properties:
Now click on the Advanced button:
And there, right in the middle of everything, is the Filename and the full path to the PST. In this case you'll notice that I'm most definitely using a non-standard location. Yours will most assuredly be different. The default location under Windows XP is typically a location underneath "\Documents And Settings\username", where "username" is your Windows login account name.
Related:
How do Outlook and Outlook Express relate? Even though they share similar names and do similar things, Outlook and Outlook Express are actually not related to each other at all.
How should I setup Outlook? In this fifth in a series of articles covering my new computer's setup, we continue by making adjustments to Microsoft Outlook.
What can I do about Outlook's huge PST? The PST or Personal STorage file for Microsoft Outlook can easily grow to an extreme size. There are some tips for managing its size.
Article C2536 - January 29, 2006
Nice article. Another issue is the backup of this file, and with the huge size of these files one solution is bakup the PST files incrementally like EdgeSafe http://www.datamills.com mainly for organizations
Posted by: Luis at May 13, 2009 1:55 PMI need to access a .PST file using DOS. An unusual request maybe. To explain, i have a Dell laptop which is dual booted XP Pro and Vista Ultimate 32bit. the Vista partition has been rendered useless by a recent windows Update that i simply cannot get round. The XP partition works great and so i am wondering if i can rescue my .PST file from outlook on the Vista partition from DOS in XP?
i too am having a simular problem. i also need to transfer from a dead vista home prem partion to the working xp pro. i have located the file ... but how do i merge it with the current file or how can i make outlook read it
19-May-2009
I have backup all of my files under program in the external hard drive. I need to import my Outlook (.pst) into another laptop computer. I went to the steps in File>ImportExport>Wizard>Next>Next and it's lost
Please help
Also there are parts of Outlook calender missing when i ImportExport last year, like 2005, 2002, etcc... I have all of my hard drives from many laptops (Sony) Can you help, I'm trying to copy everything back into one drive
I am in the San Francisco bay, Oakland, next to SF, is there someone wsho knows how to help???Referral??? I try to talk to Greek Square and no help, the Squares are lost, they only do what I do.... and I pay them???
22-May-2009
how can i take and restore backup of address book in MS outlook 2003. (Please Tell me in deffirent-2 Ways)
Posted by: Mohammad Asif at May 22, 2009 11:33 PMThanks sir!!
When I open up "Inbox Properties", I have no "Advanced" box to click on. I am running MS Office Outlook 2003/SP3. What am I missing?
Posted by: Kevin Kehoe at May 25, 2009 4:45 PMI was trying to save my husband's pst file and stupidly used "Open with" and the "ALWAYS USE" box was also checked. When I try to open the file with Outlook, it will not recognize the file. Now I am unable to open the file to save all his email addresses! Is there help?
Posted by: TOKitt at May 29, 2009 8:24 PMHow do i search for the .pst file in windows vista?
Posted by: Peter at June 3, 2009 11:19 PMSo...I know my path, but now how do I ACCESS the file in order to read my auto-archived emails? (Where do I enter the "path" address so that I can go there? Also, what do I use to OPEN a pst file. My PC (Windows Vista) doesn't know.
11-Jun-2009
I did a system backup and then had to reinstall the computer to the original factory install...I have done a recovery, all my documents are there etc.. but I cannot get the archive.pst for Outlook 7 to come up. I get an error message that it is not a personal data file but it is a pst. file. Any help????
Posted by: Karen at June 13, 2009 9:10 AMI have encountered an error and cannot open Outlook and need to reinstall. I want to copy off my pst file so I can reimport after reinstall. Have looked all over and can't find. Is there a standard install path for such (running vista)
Posted by: craig at June 25, 2009 6:14 PM