Since I had bought my laptop, I had not been able to find time to configure my emails on to my email client. Every time I had to use the web mail client and it was a pain for it gets slow, specially when you just need to review your old mails. Finally today I took the plunge and started to configure my GMail account in Outlook 2007. It was a breeze setting up specially with the help of tutorial available on Google here.
The tricky part was to move the Outlook .pst file to a different drive from the default location. Anyone who has had worked with Windows with long would know how pain is to backup data from C drive in case of failures. Using the default procedure listed in Outlook help, I moved the PST to a new location. As I started the client again, it created a new PST in a default location, leaving me wondering as to where did I go wrong while working through the procedure. Well, may be, I tried again with the same problem.
Google is the only way when you get stuck up - a simple search led to me experts-exchange.com, a site that pretends to contain all results, but I guess is useless for it forces you to shell out money for simple answers. I am surprised as to why does Google indexes this site even. A browse through more results, a few more user experiences cursing Microsoft for making simple things so tough, and I was on my way to believe that this was not possible with IMAP accounts. I was almost planning to shift to POP account of GMail, as with POP accounts you just need to click 'Change Folder location...' option and move your PST. I called up one of my friends and then we started to dig a solution for it. Here is what I did, to achieve a very complex simple task.
1. Open Outlook - Configure your GMail account as detailed here. Stop Outlook.
2. Open Control Panel -> Choose Mails -> Click on Data files.
3. Select the Account name and check for the location of the PST file. Leave the window open.
4. Open the folder containing the PST. Move the PST to the desired location.
5. Do NOT rename the file - if you do Outlook creates a new file in the default location again.
5. Switch to the Data Files window (as opened in Step 2) and double click on the PST file location.
6. Outlook displays an error window, Ignore the error, and point to the new location. Close the windows.
7. Outlook may create a new PST in the default location again, delete it, in such a case.
8. Restart Outlook.
Hope this helps.
23 comments:
Saved me some valuable time!
Thanks!
Yaniv.
Thanks a lot. I was going to assume that it was not possible as well. This solution worked for me.
Cheers!
Mohan
If you want to access experts-exchange for free, just search google using:
keywords site:experts-exchange.com
Then when you want to go to the results, take the cache version
Thanks Frans for the suggestion!
I have been doing this for long but I have seen not all results are available from the cache. :(
If you can be satisifed with moving the whole Outlook data folder to another drive, then it's fairly easy. All you need to do is to create a NTFS junction point on your C drive and link it to your Outlook data folder on another drive. From that point on, it's all transparent, even if Outlook regenerate a new pst file, it will be on your other drive.
I agree, but with a GMail account as IMAP, its not easy to link up the data folder, for Outlook doesn't show the 'Folder Location' button in the 'Data Files' option.
I had use this way long time ago, when I do exchange imap. but forget.
thanks your information .really help
Wendy
Thank you!!!
That Imap pst file was doing my head in.
I hate it when Microsoft hide important files, so I move them to my backups folder.
That way, they are already there when I need to backup.
great tip! i was just about to give up too.
Its nice to hear that the tip has helped you guys. Thanks a lot for all the kind words.
I would try my level best to keep posting such tips as and when I come across.
Thanks!
This works in Outlook 2003 also. I had tried it myself before, but I renamed the PST after I moved it, which didn't work correctly.
Thanks Mel! I would add this info in the post soon.
Excellent! This one was driving me crazy. Outlook is great for contact management and does some cool interoperations (esp in Outlook 2007) but they sure make these 'simple' tasks much harder than they have to be. Thanks for your posting! If you're ever in Atlanta I'll buy you a cold one :) Happy computing, Jim
Thanks for the offer, Jim ;)
Its indeed great to know that you found it useful.
Hi,
First, thanks! That is very helpful). However, using OL2007, I did manage to rename the files - following your instructions and keeping the window open (section 2).
10X, Aviram
Thanks much! Great unofficial guide!
Cheers!
Thanks for this.
Brilliant, thank you!
Thank you!!!
I was involved in difficult situation there were problems with mails and perhaps more than,and for me helped-how to repair .pst file manually,it has free status as far as I know,also software recover corrupted files with *.ost and *.pst extensions,can help you to extract all messages and contacts, your mailbox will be completely restored,can preview the results and see, which messages can be repaired successfully with Outlook .pst file repair program,can save the results to their hard drives or any other removable media,supports extracting of *.vcf, *.eml and *.txt formats,also possible to convert recovered data to a file with *.pst extension, that can be opened by any email client, compatible with Microsoft Outlook.
Usually I use other passwords for outlool,but some days ago I forgot my last password.And spoke with friend.He said me about one nice tool-password ost outlook recovery tool.It helped me and recovered my password,besides that it is free as is known and utility recover passwords for Microsoft Outlook accounts and files with *.pst extension.
Thanks a lot -- it is a valuable information!
How exact the description of the ordeals of the Outlook users is!
Very long I had problems with damaged mails and next tool-pst 2 eml,which advised me neighbour helped to solve me a lot of problems.Utility is free as far as I remember.Moreover application can ecover data after power failures, viruses, hacker attacks and file system corruption can affect mailbox stability and corrupt files of PST format.
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