Accessing Outlook .pst files in New Outlook

Anonymous
2024-06-04T14:06:01+00:00

I have twenty years of history in various .pst files.  When I first started using Outlook, my single .pst file and all my folders got too large and I was instructed to move some of my folders into new .pst files.  These .pst files contain lots of important emails and historic records attached to emails.  So I filed all the emails into various folders within various .pst files. 

If Outlook will no longer support .pst files, how will I be able to access the .pst files?  I understand that Microsoft will no longer support “Old Outlook”.  So what can I now do to be able to access these various .pst files?  Should i go back to what I was doing originally and move everything from .pst files into folders within my "root" Outlook email? That would put about 4.5G of emails into my New Outlook. How will that work?

Outlook | Windows | New Outlook for Windows | For home

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-06-30T13:01:51+00:00

    I have the premium version. But why would I use cloud storage when I have 25 years worth of emails in .pst files working perfectly in the Old Outlook? And backup up . Anyways, how does it work? I have 13 .pst archived files dating back to 2000. Each set has 10-20 folders. How does it merge those in? For instance, if I have a folder called 'Finance' in each .pst file will i end up with 13 'Finance' folders or will they all merge into one?

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-06-30T11:16:25+00:00

    Forget about PST files. Change your 365 licenses to a Premium license and enable auto expanding archive. This allows your In-Place-Archive to expand up 1 TB Then import your old PST file back into your mailbox.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-06-29T19:05:06+00:00

    It is still there in my comment from 05-Apr-2025. That ends with me saying I'd done a web search and:

    "That returned various hits including one at Coolutils Converter Blog titled
    "8 Best Ways to Open a PST File Without Outlook in 2024"
    The link to that is: https://www.coolutils.com/blog/ways-to-open-pst-file-without-outlook/

    I haven't tried any of the methods there yet but figured I'd share it here for others."

    On pointing browser to that link today 29-Jun-2025 it still works. However, as noted I haven't tried any of the methods it suggests. I have a paid Office365 subscription so don't need to at this point.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-06-29T17:49:44+00:00

    Just scanned backwards through this thread. Is the link still there? can you reply to me with it?

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-06-29T17:07:09+00:00

    PST support only went away for the free version.

    If you're paying for an Office365 subscription you still have and can access your local hard drive PST files so long as you do NOT switch to "New Outlook". When I did that it let me switch back and kept my local hard drive PST files intact and in my Outlook list.

    Another reason I didn't like the "New Outlook" is it wanted me to give the credentials to my non-MS email accounts so it could move them to the cloud. I have no desire to do that any more than I want to move PST files there.

    If you don't want to pay for the subscription you might investigate the post I did some time ago that had a link with alternatives to read past PST files.

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