PST File

PST is an email file extension which stands for Personal Storage Table. It has been designed to store information of Outlook for Windows. Whether you are using Outlook 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 o 2016, PST supports all versions of Outlook. A PST file cannot be opened in Apple Mail, Thunderbird, WLM, Entourage and any other email client. Users who want to open PST files on other platforms need to take help from conversion programs.

PST files store not only emails but also contacts, notes, appointments, journals, tasks and other important data of Outlook. It is a default format of Outlook. In case you have not selected any email format to save your Outlook data, the email client by default selects PST as its file extension. Personal Storage Table is used widely. A large number of companies across the world use PST to store their important emails. It is a universally accepted and one of the most common file extensions.

Open Outlook Data Files (.pst)

• In case your PST file is not appearing in the Folder Pane, you can add it so that you can work with the items in the file. A few simple and step by step procedures are required to do.
• Select the “File” tab
• Select “Open and Export” and then “Open Outlook Data File”
• A new window will open where “PST files” appear in the left navigation bar
• Note: With these steps you have reached the location where the PST files are stored by default.
• If you are using Outlook 2013 or 2016, a PST file is located in Documents\Outlook Files folder.

Customize the PST File Name

It is important to give a unique name to your PST files. It will help you to work smoothly with multiple Outlook Data Files. The Navigation Pane displays PST files. To give a name to a PST file:

• Click the “File” button
• Click Account Settings, and then click “Account Settings”
• On the “Data Files”, click the PST file you want to customize its name and then “settings”
• Now provide a unique name in the “Name” bar
• Note: When you change the display name, it doesn’t rename the file. The unique name is displayed only in the Navigation Pane.

Backup the PST File

Backing up Outlook Data Files allows you to maintain privacy of your important data and prevent them from corruption. A safe location of a PST file could be:

• Another physical hard drive in your system
• Another physical hard drive in another system
• An external hard drive
• A DVD or CD
• A flash memory card of a backup tape

Size of the PST files

Do you ever analyse the size of a PST file. The Personal Storage Table supports ANSI and Unicode formats. An ANSI PST file has capacity to store up to 2 GB data. The improved version of PST supports 2003 to 2016 Outlook versions which has capacity of storing data from 20 GB to up to 50 GB. It means users can create a huge PST file. Unicode PST files support multiple character sets and can able to store a number of items per folder.