A .pst or Personal Storage Table, is a file format that is used for storing copies of calendar events, messages and other things such as Windows Messaging, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Client that are a part of Microsoft software. There are many ways of creating and saving pst files and this article will tell you how to save pst files using each of these methods.
Save pst file in Outlook
- If you want to save a pst file when Microsoft Outlook is running, open Outlook Express and go to the File menu.
- Click on File and select “New” and then click on “Outlook Data File” option.
- Click on “Office Outlook Personal Folders File” under “Types of Storage area” to create a new .pst file and then click OK.
- You can either use the default folder location or choose the location yourself and type in the file name for your pst file. You can also use the default file name if you wish.
- Click OK and type a title for the pst file in the Name box. You can also select a password and an encryption setting here and then click OK.
- You pst file will now be saved in the Outlook All Mail Folders list.
Saving pst files with Tools menu
- To use the Tools menu for saving pst file, go to the Tools menu at the top of your screen and select e-mail accounts option.
- Click on the option “view or change existing e-mail accounts” and click on “next”.
- A dialog box will pop-up named “e-mail accounts”, here click on “new outlook data file”.
- Under the Types Storage area, select the option “Office Outlook Personal Folders file” to create the pst file, which his compatible with other Outlook versions and click on OK.
- You can change the folder location or save the pst file in the default location of Outlook Express.
- You can also set the default name for your pst file or give it a different name in the Name box and then click on OK.
- In this step, you can also set the encryption and password setting if you want. However, you will have to keep in mind that once you make these settings you will not be able to change them.
- Click on the name of this newly created pst file in the “deliver new e-mail to the following location” area and then click on Finish to complete the process of saving pst file.
You can also save pst files when Outlook is not running or when you are using multiple e-mail profiles. The process is quite similar to the ones described above. The only difference is in the first step. For example when you want to save pst files when Outlook is not running, you need to access the Mail settings in the Control Panel and then follow the same steps for creating pst file from the Types Storage area as explained above. Similarly, when you are using more than one e-mail profile, you need to go to the Show Profiles folder in Mail folder in the Control Panel. Follow the same steps for creating and saving pst files after that.
Tips & warnings
- You can copy, move and save pst files to a different location such as hard drive, floppy or a removable disk. However, you cannot move a pst file if it is open as a default information store. This means that you will have to exit Outlook if you want to move pst files.
- When you save pst files from CD-R, CD-ROM or CD-RW ensure that you change the file attributes of your pst file to Archive from read only.
- When you set passwords for saving pst files ensure that the password length is up to 15 characters.
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