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
    2025-03-25T11:54:56+00:00

    BlennerHasset - I can’t answer all questions but I can tell you that I am a subscriber to Microsoft 365. I have been able to download the classic Outlook. But I had to go find it separately and download it separately not as a part of any Microsoft 365 installation. My PST files at present are on my device. I am not certain how things are going to evolve.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-03-25T11:08:50+00:00

    Forgive me if these questions have been answered about New Outlook but I've not been able to get them clear in my own mind:

    1. Is using POP to be discontinued?
    2. If so, will only IMAP be supported or is there a different protocol?
    3. I do not want my emails hosted on a remote server/cloud but stored locally (only) - is this possible?
    4. If so, and PSTs are no longer natively supported, where and how will local storage be possible?

    For context, New Outlook started for me after a reinstall of Windows 11 but I could download the standalone Classic version and am using that again (note I have a full 365 subscription). Like many people here I have a PST holding emails going back several years (personal and business) but my interest is not just retrospective but also looking to how I can manage things as I want into the future.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-03-24T12:24:04+00:00

    As a translation ; new Outlook will force you to move all your PSTs to standard Putlook folders stored in Azure forcing you to move to a paid suscription since you will eat up quickly all your "free" storage

    Bad news....

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  4. Hal Hostetler MVP-Outlook 12,011 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-03-10T16:25:05+00:00

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-03-10T07:47:36+00:00

    Hi folks, this may be amazing news for some.

    Every now and again the annoying icon with an exclamation mark saying something needs to be fixed irritates me and I click on it. I've just booted my PC and clicked and the usual "you need a subscription" message didn't happen. Instead I got this:

    Obviously I hit "Continue to open" and BOOM... I had read access to my archive. I tried a few more. All worked. I clicked on the three dots to the top right when you hover over the file...

    You can add files.

    I followed the "Learn more" to the article that tells you more. You can now manage them in Settings>General>Outlook Data Files and add them there too.

    The big thing that I've found is that you can't (yet) re-arrange them into the order that you'd really like them to be in - so mine run from 2016 to 2023 and then I've added the missing 2012-2015 files and they're at the bottom (I may have to remove them all and then add them in the proper sequence in case it drives me too distraction).

    Anyway, I don't know if this is rolling out slowly or if you all have access to it now, but I can certainly read my old email archives within New Outlook. Hooooooorah!

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