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
    2025-04-06T02:30:04+00:00

    If you do not want to subscribe to a paid Microsoft 365 plan to get Classic Outlook, then you might want to consider buying a license for Office Home & Business 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-business-2024/cfq7ttc0pbm7 This includes Outlook 2024. The latest version of the full featured, Classic, desktop, stand alone, perpetual license Outlook.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-15T04:45:00+00:00

    OK so I've just started using new Outlook and if I was to import my email archives ie pst files in order to do a search, I would have 32GB of data in my new Outlook which is silly. What I would have to do is import each archive separately and then delete same but it's not clear how I do that? Equally, my emails are archived within each pst file in different folders. Are the folders preserved when I import them?

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-16T13:45:39+00:00

    As a follow up to my post on 05-Apr-2025.

    Outlook did in fact automatically switch me to "new Outlook" on my next reboot.

    However, it did let me convert back to "classic Outlook" right away.

    It asked why and I told it the lack of support for PST files was the reason.

    Since then (some 10 days) it has not attempted to automatically switch me to "new Outlook" again.

    Other comments here suggest a paid Office 365 subscription is what allows one to switch back. I do have a paid Office 365 subscription.

    P.S. If you do a web search for ways to view PST files without Outlook you'll find various hits. I tried to share a link a few days ago but the post failed for some reason.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-05T11:26:40+00:00

    AND NO OPTION TO STORE ANY OF THIS LOCALLY. MY EMAILS. 20+ years of records that I do not want to have sitting in the cloud.

    What are the plans for us decidding WHERE the physical data is held. eg.. LOCAL NAS etc ?

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-05-05T14:58:19+00:00

    Your PST files don't go away on switch to new Outlook. If you do an online search you'll find other non-MS tools that can read PST files.

    If you have a paid Office 365 subscription you will be prompted to switch but it gives you the option to switch back which is what I did since I do have a paid subscription.

    A reply on my feedback to MS on switch back said that the paid subscription actually allows for use of PST files. (Not what they'd previously announced.) Due to that I switched to new again but then it wanted to put my other non-MS email accounts in MS cloud. I don't need that since I can access those via their own mail sites on the web. Moreover, I don't WANT that as I have no desire to give MS access to my other email. Accordingly I switched back to classic Outlook again noting that as the reason.

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