Import a pst file into new outlook

Tim,

Thanks for the reply!

I have discovered what you mentioned some time ago. I do subscribe to Microsoft 365 Family for personal use and my work uses Microsoft Business versions Office/Teams. I became aware of the PST issue when my company transitioned to the New Outlook some time ago when my configured customer PST simply disappeared. I believe a workaround would be to create a folder under an existing email account, copy the data from the PST files to the new folder(s) then switch to the new Outlook. I haven't tried it but I plan to.

Interesting thing is on my Windows 11 laptop I have both the Classic and New Outlooks running separately so I can jump between the two. I believe it was part of a recent upgrade to Microsoft 365 that create the separate new Outlook app. Funny thing, it only configured one of my email accounts.

The real point of the matter is why Microsoft chose to implement the New Outlook without providing a method to migrate the PST data to it? I can't believe that this is a simply oversight on their part but part of a strategy to force a change on how Outlook is implemented for some monetary reason. Outlook is used by millions around the world who I believe are in the same situation as I am with years of correspondence for personal and business use that they wouldn't provide a viable path forward to retain that information for their users.

Hi Adnan Khan RADS1,

Good day.

In the meantime, we sincerely recommend you post your concern as an idea to our Outlook in-app feedback site Contact support and provide feedback within the new Outlook for Windows - Microsoft Support

Our Product Development Team is committed to enhancing the customer experience by continually examining suggestions to include in the design and development of future product upgrades based on your suggestions. Hopefully, your suggestion will help many users in the future.

We encourage you to Vote as this is might be useful to other users in the community.

I hope this helps let me know if this is contrary to what you need, I would still be helpful to answer more of your questions .

Best Regards

Community Moderator

For those who are not finding the toggle, click Help, and then you can see the switch button "Go to classic Outlook".

Thanks for the good response. I was able to install classic and have the option to import but encountered another problem. - it asked for the password in the pst file.

When I saved the pst file it never asked for a password. So I’m stuck again. it won’t let me import the file without the password.

Any idea why it asks for a password to import when it never asked for one when exporting to a pst file? I’ve tried the passwords for the outlook account but that doesn’t work.

PST file with password... try using the Mail app in Control Panel to add a new data file and select the pst in question. Also, chk if ScanPST.exe is in Program files\Microsoft\Microsoft Office\Office15 which can usually clean-up pst files. may need to run scanpst.exe from that folder unless you can sort-out which dll's etc it requires and copy the pst to a folder off the root, so you can find it easily in the utility. There should be some articles on Microsoft.com. Also, the SARA Utility might be able to determine the issue. You can search for that on Microsoft.com, too. Just be sure to save multiple copies of the pst before trying anything, even trying to add it to your Office mail profile in control panel.

There may be some 3rd party utilities that can break the pst password lock, check with Corbettsoftware.com, they might have something.

My hunch is that since you do not think you actually had the file password protected, then there may be some corruption in the file that Outlook is finding and giving up too quickly. Also, make sure you get Outlook working with a new empty pst file first, then try to add the old pst as a 2nd data file.

Good Luck