Where are the outlook folders stored? Where does Outlook store the PST file and how can I move it to another drive? Where are Outlook data files stored?

Most users know that the Outlook email program stores received email messages with the eml extension in PST files, but not everyone knows where. Today we will tell you where Outlook stores the PST file and how to move all mail message files to another drive.

What is a PST file?

The PST format or "personal storage table" is a file format that Outlook uses to store all data, including mail, contacts, calendar and others. This data may be compressed or encrypted, depending on your settings. You should understand that Outlook slows down a lot as the amount of data stored in the PST file increases. To resolve this issue, Outlook will continually prompt you to archive old messages.

You may also encounter other files that have the .ost extension and are located in the program's working directory. OST files have a very similar format to PST files, but are usually used only for offline storage of mail archives.

Looking for a PST file

You can find the current PST location very quickly through Outlook settings. For example, in Outlook 2010, for this you need to open the “File” section of the main menu, and in it select “Account Settings...”. In Outlook 2007, the “Account Settings...” item is available through another section of the “Tools” menu.

After selecting this item, the Account Settings dialog box will open. By opening the “Data Files” tab, you will see a list of placement (by default) of PST and OST format files. Here you can independently choose the location of each file, for which you need to click on the “Open folder...” button, which will open the Outlook directory in Explorer.

Please note that some accounts, such as Hotmail, will tell you that data files are not available. However, if you do open the hosting directory, you will find them there.

So where are PST files stored?

By default, the PST file is saved to the current user's directory in the system documents and settings folder. To go to this directory in Windows 7 or Vista, enter the following path in the address bar of Explorer:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\

In Windows XP the path is slightly different:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\

How to move a PST file?

If you've run out of free space on your computer's local drive and want to move your Outlook files to another location, external storage is perfect for this. By default, if you transfer Outlook data files to a new location without any settings, the email program will automatically generate a new PST file along the old path, which will waste a lot of time (mail messages will be downloaded again). In addition, you will lose access to old, previously compressed messages. Here you should be reminded of the situation when a similar object is used by another user or program.

To prevent this from happening, the first thing you need to do is change the path where Outlook stores files through the registry. Close the email program and run the executable file of the registry editor “regedit” through the search bar of the start menu (or the “Run” command). Depending on the version of Outlook you are using, you will need to open the following registry keys:

Outlook 2010: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\

Outlook 2007: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\

Outlook 2003: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\

Then right-click on the “Outlook” folder in the left pane of the registry editor and use the context menu to select the creation of a new parameter “Extensible string parameter”.

Give the new parameter the name “ForcePSTPath”, and after it is created, select editing it, for which you just need to double-click on it with the left mouse button.

In the "Change String Parameter" window that opens, you should specify the new path where the Outlook data files will be stored, and then click "OK".

Now you can safely transfer all your Outlook data to a new directory on external storage. Launch your email program - now everything in it will look as if you didn’t do anything.

Conclusion

It doesn't matter if you're a professional who's been receiving business email through Outlook for years or an individual who wants a copy of email messages from a Gmail account, Outlook remains the most common and convenient application. Now you know a lot more about how to work with this program's data files.

It seems like a very simple question: Where is email stored?

Mail can be stored on the server or in a personal folder on your computer (personal folders file, PST file). Today we'll talk about how messages are stored on your computer.

Storing messages locally on your own computer

Let's say you decide to reduce your mailbox size by storing email messages on your computer (instead of storing them, for example, on a mail server). Perhaps you simply need to move some of the messages associated with an important project from one computer to another. How to do this? Where will the email be stored after completing these steps?
Answer: Mail will be stored in Outlook personal folder (Personal Folders file, PST file). There are two ways to store mail in PST files.

Creating and using personal folders (.pst files) is quite simple in Outlook. Below are a number of reasons why you should use personal folders.

• Freeing up space on the server You should use personal folders when you receive notifications from your system administrator that your mailbox is approaching its size limit.
• More efficient documentation Use personal folders to store messages you need for professional or personal purposes. PST storage allows you to maintain a paper trail.
• Portability You can use Personal Folders to move or copy messages from one computer to another, or to back them up to a CD or other removable media.

Think before saving messages locally

Messages stored in a .pst file can only be accessed by one user at a time, so some organizations' policies do not allow or explicitly prohibit message storage locally.

We've just looked at the benefits of this approach, but it's also important to know that local storage isn't for everyone. To figure out if it's right for you, you need to consider the facts below.

• When using PST files, messages can only be accessed from one computer at a time. Messages stored in PST files are less accessible than messages on the mail server. Messages are stored on your computer, so they will not be accessible from another computer. (For a way around this limitation, see the last course in the series.)
• Only one user can work on a PST file at a time. Even if you share a computer and share a .pst file, the user will be able to open the file only after the user working on the file closes the file.
• Local storage may be prohibited by organizational policies. Some organizations have rules governing what can and cannot be stored. An organization's retention policies may prohibit (or prevent) the creation of .pst files. Instead of moving messages into their own folders, users are given access to special "managed folders." Typically, such folders are created and managed by the system administrator.

It's time to take action using the archiving feature

We've looked at some of the advantages and disadvantages of storing messages locally. It's time to consider ways. Let's start with archiving. The main benefit of the Archive feature (also known as AutoArchive) is that you only need to click a button to use it. Yes.

In a typical Outlook installation, AutoArchive is enabled by default. (The fourth course in the series will show you how to change the default settings.) This means that once you click the button Yes in Outlook's "Auto-Archive Old Items Now?" message box, the AutoArchive feature will start doing its job.

The AutoArchive feature moves messages based on their retention period. This is done regularly (eg every 14 days) as long as the user answers "Yes".

Below is an overview of how this feature works.

To start the procedure, click the button Yes.

Messages are moving from the mailbox...

...to the archive folder.

Outlook creates this folder automatically.

All mailbox subfolders are automatically mirrored to an archive folder, and messages are moved to those subfolders according to their location in the mailbox. Thus, the archiving function copies the mailbox structure to the archive folder. As you can see in the picture, the Alpine Ski House and Contoso folders look exactly the same in the archive folder as they do in the mailbox.

Again, Outlook does all the work automatically.

As you may have noticed, Outlook does most of the work automatically. If you're the kind of person who needs everything to be neat but doesn't care how exactly it gets done, the archiving feature is your choice. How does this feature relate to personal folders? We will consider this issue further.

Personal folders provide maximum control

Unlike the archiving feature, when using personal folders, you have to do some of the work yourself. This means that you will have to create folders and subfolders and put messages there. Messages can be moved by dragging and dropping, using menu commands, or by creating your own rules. What are the benefits of this? Since you move the messages yourself, you can arrange them in any way you want.

Is this method right for you?

• You periodically empty your inbox.
• You save messages every time you read them.
• You group messages by project, topic, and other important categories.
• You enjoy developing storage systems and expect to update those systems, for example after completing old projects and starting new ones.
• You create rules to move messages to specified folders.

If so, you'll love the amount of control that personal folders provide.

In both cases, PST files are used

As you already know, both Archiving and Personal Folders move messages (not copy them) to the Outlook folder. In both cases, the moved messages will always be available in a folder in the Outlook Navigation Pane.

Another similarity is that in both cases, folders, subfolders, and the messages within them are stored in a file called the Outlook data file. This file is also known as Outlook Personal Folders file, PST file, and Personal Vault (PST file is stored on your personal computer).

Additional Personal Folder Type

For some account types, email is delivered directly to a personal folder. If email is delivered directly to your computer, as is the case with a POP3 account or a properly configured Exchange Server account, your mailbox will look like the mailbox outlined in red in the figure. This means that in the navigation pane next to the mailbox icon it will say Personal folders.

What does this mean? Typically, this means that the email is delivered directly to a PST file on your computer. (By default, this file is named Outlook.pst.) Even if mail is delivered to this type of personal folder, you can still use the Archive feature or a personal folder that you create yourself. Disk space is limited and folders fill up, so once you've put everything in order, finding the data you need is much faster.

Well, of course, you say - on your local computer in a personal folders (PST) file. Perhaps, I will answer. But it's not at all necessary. And it’s not at all that simple. Mail can also be stored on the server. But on a local computer, there are two types of folders for storing mail - personal and archive?

Let's try to figure this out.

Free space on a computer that receives email is limited. Sooner or later, you'll want to know how you can create private files for your email messages. You can store these files locally on your computer, where you won't have size limits set by someone else.

A user might think that email is hosted on their computer because that's where they view it. In fact, when working with an Exchange server or a web-based email service, most messages remain on the server until the user moves them to another location.

Where, then, should the email be moved? Microsoft allows you to create local data files, called personal folder files (PST), that will actually reside on your local computer. There are a number of benefits to using personal folder files.

No reminders. If you store all your email in an inbox located on a server, sooner or later you will receive a message asking you to empty your inbox. In some cases, such messages may contain a threat to block the mailbox until the user fulfills these requirements. Storing email in a local Microsoft Outlook folder file prevents you from receiving these types of messages.

No congestion. By storing less important messages in a separate folder, you can focus on the most important messages.

Reducing used disk space. The ability to compress personal folder files (PST) makes them the most efficient way to store messages. The less disk space the files occupy, the more of it is available to the user.

Freedom of movement. PST files can be moved from one computer to another and can also be stored on a CD. You can also store these files on a computer that you share with other users and assign a password to control access to the messages.

Archive and personal folders are not part of the mailbox.

1. Mailbox
2. Archive folders and personal folders

Received messages are placed in the Inbox folder. Typically, the Inbox folder is located inside mailbox along with the “Calendar”, “Contacts” and others folders. If messages are stored locally, they are moved to archive or personal folders, which are separate data files outside mailbox. Microsoft Outlook has information about the location of these folders, but it is not accessible to the server.

You can use either personal or archive folders, or both, to store messages in a personal folders file!

What is the difference between archive and personal folders?

It is important to consider two points from the very beginning.

1. Messages stored in a personal folders (.pst) file are not accessible from the email server. They are on the local computer, and the user moving to another computer will not be able to read these messages until he moves them to the new machine.
2. Only one user can work on a PST file at a time. Even if the computer is shared and you have permissions for multiple users to access the Personal Folders file, each user must close the PST file before the other user can open it.

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"Mouse" works with mail data on a computer in the same way as most other mailers. The program creates a folder for the user's profile, where it stores configuration files, the contents of email accounts and certificates.

Still in the process of installing The Bat! you could choose where to place the mail catalog. And if you did not specify the appropriate path then, then the program uses the default option:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\The Bat!

Let's go to the mail catalog of The Bat! and immediately mark one or more folders with the names of our boxes. All email profile data is stored in them. And letters too.

But not everything is so simple here. The mailer does not store each letter in a separate file. Incoming and outgoing mail have their own databases - something like archives. Therefore, you will not be able to restore a specific message - you will have to “restore” the entire storage.

After this, all that remains is to wait for the completion of the conversion of the client’s mail databases to their original state.

How to backup and restore emails in The Bat!

Let's say you reinstalled the mailer from Ritlabs and defined a new directory for the mail catalog. Lost letters in this case can be easily restored. To do this, simply move the folder with the data of the desired mailbox to the new path.

Although this method works, to prevent such situations it is better to use the built-in data backup feature.

Let's say we want to transfer all received mail to another computer and work with it there using The Bat! Well, or we simply want to ensure that the contents of the letters are preserved when the system is reinstalled. In both cases, you can use the function to export messages to a file.

After this, the backup copy of the letters can be imported, for example, into The Bat! installed on another PC.

As a result, letters from the backup copy will be completely restored and placed in the previous folder of the mail account.

Outlook is a program included with Microsoft Office designed for working with emails and letters. In order not to lose or transfer letters from the program to another computer or third-party media, they can be saved in a separate file, exported or archived.

Saving an email in Outlook 2010 and 2013

Where does Outlook store emails?

By default, the program saves all letters after every certain period of time into a separate outlook.pst file automatically. This file is located in the Primary_disk:\Documents and Settings\account_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder. You can copy and use this archive for your own purposes, but keep in mind that the latest letters received by mail may not have time to get into it. Therefore, it is better to use manual export or archiving to be sure that all letters will end up in the file.

How to archive letters

Archiving in Outlook is a feature that moves some emails into a separate compressed archive to reduce the amount of memory they occupy on your hard drive. Unlike traditional backup, which creates a copy of Outlook items, archived items are moved to a separate Outlook data file (.pst file). Archived items can be accessed at any time by opening this file.

Automatic archiving

By default, the function is activated and performs its duties after 2, 3 or 6 months, depending on the type of letters. See the table below for more details.

Table: Retention period of various data in Outlook

After the first automatic archiving session, the program creates a file and a separate folder for it. In the future, you will be able to independently add letters to the archive or remove them from it. An archive created using Outlook is located by default in the Primary_drive:\User\Account_Name\Documents\Outlook Files\archive.pst section.

To customize automatic archiving settings for yourself, follow these steps:

Manual archiving

During manual archiving, the “Archive” folder will be created automatically if it was not previously created during automatic archiving.

Video: Archiving in Outlook

Downloading and restoring emails from archives and pst files

If you have an archive or other file with letters in pst format, then you can quickly download all the data from it into the program. That is, using a PST file you can restore lost data or add new data taken from another computer:

Video: Microsoft Outlook 2010 database migration

Exporting letters

Export allows you to save both letters and other elements located in Outlook into a separate uncompressed file in pst format. The resulting file can be used in the same way as an archive, but it will not need to be unzipped.

1. While in the “File” tab, go to the “Open” subsection.
   Open the “Open” section
2. Select the "Import" or "Import and Export" function, depending on the program version.
   Click the “Import” button
3. Check the "Export files" option.
   Select the action “Export files”
4. Specify that you want to create a file in pst format.
   Specify pst format
5. Select individual folders to export, or check the topmost section and check the box next to the words “Include subfolders.”
   Specify which folders need to be exported
6. Specify the path where the location for storing the file with exported letters will be determined.
   We indicate where to save the file with the exported files
7. If you want, you can set a password for the file, but this is not necessary. Set a password for the file
8. As a result, you will receive a file with which you can transfer letters to any computer that has Outlook.
   Exported file received

How to highlight letters

In order to mark several letters at once for further deletion or transfer them to the “Read” section, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and start marking letters with the mouse without releasing the key.

If you need to select a large number of letters at once, then select the first letter, and then hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and select the last letter without releasing the key. All letters between the first and last letter will be highlighted.

To select all letters at once, mark one letter and hold down the Ctrl+A key combination, then all letters located in the same folder as the selected letter will be selected.

Saving attachments from multiple emails

Some received letters may contain attachments: files, pictures, videos, etc. You can save the attachments of each letter in turn, but there is another option:

Some problems with Outlook emails and their solutions

While working with letters, certain errors or problems may arise. To eliminate them, you need to perform certain actions.

Unread messages are read independently

If emails sent to you are automatically marked as “Read” even though you did not open them, then the fact is that you have enabled a feature that shows that you have read the email if you have a tab open with it for a few seconds. To disable this feature, you must follow these steps:

Old emails are not displayed

Messages read some time ago may no longer appear in the program. To fix this, follow these steps:

You can export or archive emails from Outlook to create a file that you can transfer to another computer or give to someone else. The created file can be retrieved using any version of Outlook using import or item creation.