How to backup and restore Microsoft Outlook PST files

popowich · Monday, December 29th, 2008

Thank you How-To-Outlook for your permission to use the following Backup and Restore guide.

With today’s use of e-mail you almost can’t afford to lose a single e-mail so let alone your entire mail archive. This guide is all about backing up and restoring your Outlook Data. It describes various methods and explains which method is best to be used in which scenarios.

Locating the pst-file

Before you can make a backup you’ll need to know what to backup first. In the case of Outlook in a home environment all data is stored in a single file with a pst-extension. The pst-file is also known as Personal Folders and is able to store several mail, contacts, journal, notes and calendar folders. More about pst-files can be found here. You can locate your pst-file by using one of the following methods;

Make sure you include hidden and system files and folders when searching for pst-file
By default it is located in
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
For Windows Vista the default is
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outloo k\
You can also locate the file by using
Rightclick the root folder (probably Outlook Today)-> Properties-> button Advanced-> field Filename

Relocating the pst-file (optional)

I assume lots of you have already relocated the My Documents folder to a more convenient location by right clicking it on the Desktop-> Properties-> tab Target. I’ve got mine set to D:\My Documents so I won’t have to rescue my data in the (worst) case that I have to reformat my C:\ drive. As I see the pst-file to be data just like a Word file I like to have it where I keep all my important documents; in the My Documents folder. In the My Documents folder I have a folder called My Outlook where I store the file in.

To configure Outlook with a new pst-file location do the following;

Make sure Outlook is closed
Go the the location of your pst-file
Copy it to the new location (D:\My Documents\My Outlook)
Rename the file in the old location to .old
Start Outlook; after a warning message it will prompt you to locate the pst-file. Use the Browse button to direct it to the location you’ve set in step 3
You’re done! If all is successful and desired you can delete the renamed pst-file in the old location. You might need to recreate some “move to folder” Wizard Rules to update the new location.

Backup pst-file

Backing up the pst-file is quite easy; you just copy the pst-file to your safe location when Outlook is closed. A safe location can be one of the following;

another physical hard drive in your machine
another physical hard drive in another machine
an external hard drive
a USB memory stick
a Flash memory card
a CD-R(W)
a DVD+/-R(W)
a backup tape

Restore pst-file

A backup is worthless if you can’t restore it. So we first test the back-up. Testing the backup when knowing that the original still works is a lot less stressful then as well.

To restore your pst-file copy the file to the location where you want to work with it like D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp. If you restored from CD/DVD make sure you uncheck the “Read Only” file attribute by right clicking the file and choose Properties. Now open Outlook and connect to the file by choosing File-> Open-> Outlook Data File… You can now check if the backup was successful and you made sure you backed up the right file.

In the case of a real disaster the original pst-file would be missing or beyond repair. When the pst-file is missing Outlook would have prompted you for the pst-file location. You then need to close Outlook and restore the file from backup to D:\My Documents\My Outlook as described above. Then start Outlook again and if prompted browse to the location of the pst-file.

When the pst-file is beyond repair Outlook will start with the message that it can’t be opened and that you need to run the Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe). If scanpst.exe can’t fix the pst-file either rename the corrupted pst-file to .old and you would now be in the situation that the pst-file went missing.
Export pst-file

It’s a general misconception that an export of your mail is a good backup. This misconception gets even bigger if you run the export and see that the default name of the file to export to is backup.pst. The reason that it isn’t a backup is because you will lose data during an export even if you configure the export to export all the folders and subfolders. The following data gets lost during an export;

custom forms
custom views
Wizard Rules
folder properties like AutoArchive settings

An export of your pst-file to another pst-file can be seen as a selective backup since during the export you can choose what data you want to backup. This is handy if you see no need in backing up the entire pst-file like the Sent Items folder or the Funny Forwards folder (who doesn’t have one of those?) which can get quite big over time and you might consider them as not important enough to backup.

Let’s say you only want to export your Inbox and your Contacts folder;

Choose File-> Import and Export…
Choose Export to a file
Choose Personal Folder File (.pst)
Select the Inbox and press Next (we do the Contacts folder later)
Set the file location to D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Backup\export.pst
Press Finish and you’ll be prompted to set properties for the export.pst file
In the Name field type a descriptive name like “Export June 2004″
Press OK to start the export
To export the Contacts folder as well repeat step 1 to 4 and this time select the Contacts folder
If the save location is not set to the path you’ve set in step 5 browse to it
Press Finish to export the Contact folder
Close Outlook and copy the exported file to your safe location as described in Backup pst-file

Import pst-file

Importing a pst-file can only be done in a working Outlook situation like when you’ve reinstalled your machine, configured Outlook and now want to restore your Inbox and Contacts. Importing a pst-file can be done in two different ways; automatically through a wizard or manually by dragging and dropping. Before importing restore your pst-file; Copy the file to the location where you want to work with it like D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp. If you restored from CD/DVD make sure you uncheck the “Read Only” file attribute by right clicking the file and choose Properties.
Restore through the Import and Export Wizard

Choose File-> Import and Export…
Choose Import from another program or file
Choose Personal Folder File (.pst)
Browse to the location where you’ve restored the pst file (D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp)
Set the options to “Include subfolders” and “Import items into the same folder in:” and select the folder that is listed as your Outlook Today folder set in the dropdown list
Press Finish to complete the import
Restart Outlook and remove the export.pst file from the Temp directory if desired

Restore manually

Choose File-> Open-> Outlook Data File…
Browse to the location where you’ve restored the pst file (D:\My Documents\My Outlook\Temp)
You’ll now see an additional set of folders added to your folder list which you can expand. Expand the list and select the Inbox folder
In this folder select the messages you want to restore to the original Inbox folder
Drag & drop them to the default Inbox folder
Do the same for the Contacts folder. You might want to set your view to a list view so you can easily select and move the items. To change the view choose View-> Arrange By-> Category
Now that the importing is complete right click the pst-file added in step 2 and choose Disconnect
Restart Outlook and remove the export.pst file from the Temp directory if desired

Backing up individual items

Sometimes it’s more convenient to backup a single item. Think about account login information you receive by e-mail. Backing up this way is very easy. You can choose File-> Save as… and then choose in which format you want to save the message. If you want to be able to open them on just about any system you can choose the txt or htm format. To easily save several messages in the Outlook format (msg) you can select those messages and drag & drop them out of Outlook into an Explorer window. When you save them in the msg-format any attachments that might have been included in the message are saved within the msg-file as well.

Tools

Outlook Add-in: Personal Folders Backup
The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2000 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.

Backup script
I created this batch in order to be able to schedule Outlook pst-file backups by using Scheduled tasks in Windows. Since I always have my Outlook open a simple copy to backup isn’t possible without an “open file backup” service.

Outlook Backup
ABF Outlook Backup is a backup and synchronization tool for MS Outlook. It allows you to backup and restore your messages, address book, settings, accounts, message rules, junk email lists, signatures, and even your Internet favorites. If you decide to order use ABF-1HTJ8 to get a discount.