Outlook .pst file - advice please! :)

The Guvnor

Long story - very short - one of my hard drives is dying! :eek: It did however give 6 years of good service so one cannot complain and data is backed up.

The issue atm is a simple one (maybe).

I had been using outlook express and was happy with it and all that.

However with the drive failing it has a tendency to keep sending out the same email.

I have now added the eircom email accounts to my new gmail account and this works flawlessly which is great.

The issue is the .pst file with all the archived emails - some of which are important!

I believe importing it to gmail is a no go?

Windows 8 is on the laptop - not sure how easy the import would be there into live mail (?)

Thunderbird is also there but once again not sure if a .pst can be imported?

Would just like to be able to access the emails if possible - what are the best options for this?

my3cents

Do you even have a pst file? Outlook express doesn't use them only its big brother Outlook has a pst file. Express uses a bunch of files hidden in your profile can't remember the extension.

The Guvnor

The it is just outlook I have.

.pst file all 4.19GB is there.

my3cents

The Guvnor wrote: »

The it is just outlook I have.

.pst file all 4.19GB is there.

I've been out of working with outlook for a few years but back in my day there was a 2GB limit on the size of the pst file due to it working like an access data base. Will check that up but I know when you hit the size limit of 2GB strange things would happen and one of them was sending the same email time and time again.

Edit> OK my bad after Outlook 2003 the limit changed and is now 20GB by default

superelliptic

.PST files will open with any version of Outlook but the main thing to be concerned about now is that you have a PST file on a dying hard disk. You need to find the PST file and back it up somewhere safe before you do anything else.

Windows Live mail apparently cannot be used to read PST's - you need to download a trial of MS Office for that;

Link:https://products.office.com/en-us/try

There are programs that will let you view the contents of a PST file but if you want to work with the emails it contains then I would suggest reinstalling MS Office on your new PC or downloading the trial, and opening the PST file that way.

Here's instructions on importing your PST into Outlook 365/2010.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/outlook-help/import-outlook-items-from-an-outlook-data-file-pst-HA102505743.aspx


Let us know how you get on OP!

The Guvnor

The last bit is good news!

I know there are readers online but a lot are not quite what they say etc.

Importing to google or even the new version of windows mail on windows 8 would be good.

I'd even put outlook on the laptop if possible just to have the archived old emails etc.

The Guvnor

Thanks Super - reckon will put the new version of office on the laptop and do it that way!

superelliptic

The Guvnor wrote: »

Thanks Super - reckon will put the new version of office on the laptop and do it that way!

Actually Guvnor - I did a quick search and it looks like Google might have a PST -> Gmail migration tool!

Link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/outlookmigration

Disclaimer: It seems to be legitimate as I've just visited the link myself and downloaded the app, but I've never used this application before so I don't know how effective it is. Might be worth a punt as it could save you a lot of time. One thing I would recommend strongly however is having a backup of your PST beforehand on a separate USB stick/Hard disk/whatever before you go installing it in case your current PC dies during the attempt.

All the best!

The Guvnor

It would appear gmail is not working flawlessly atm!

With two domain names I own - one from blacknight I can send emails out but they do not come into gmail?

They are visible in mail2web.

For blacknight domain on gmail I configured the smtp server that is all we would need?

notmymark

The Guvnor wrote: »

Thanks Super - reckon will put the new version of office on the laptop and do it that way!

FYI OP, if you just plan on using Outlook to have access to your archived emails then you don't have to buy the new version of Outlook. Just install your existing version on the new drive. The same licence should work.

bluferbl

I did this a couple of years back when I decided to no longer use Outlook and only use gmail in a browser. I added the gmail account as an IMAP account to Outlook and then dragged the historical email from the Outlook folders into the gmail folders.

It took quite a while because there was a large number of emails and through trial and error I found that the copying would 'choke' if I tried to select too many files at a time.

I was a big Outlook fan and used it from the very beginning but I don't miss it at all.

The Guvnor

Thanks bluferbl!