Have just re-installed windows- any way to painlessly restore my outlook settings/ folders?

[EdwardTeach]

I backed up my old user folder, and believe that is where outlook stored the emails archives.

When i re-install outlook how do I get it to find the archived emails?

 

[postmanfw]

Its in a hidden folder in the user folder...application data then i think its roaming folder then microsoft. Just import the pst file thats there

 

[EdwardTeach]

If I just dump it in my new user folder in the same place should that work,.or do I need to do something from within outlook?

 

[Paul11]

just dump the files back in the same folder, this will restore your old email and folder structure

but you will still have to setup all the email addresses again

 

[EdwardTeach]

doesnt seem to have recovered everything any suggestions?

 

[EdwardTeach]

Bumping this thread as I never got an answer. I want to access some emails that were store in my archive.

 

[Hamster]

Find which user folder the current Outlook.pst file is in. Copy that file to a different location and then replace it with the Outlook.pst you backed up a while back. You should now have all your emails that were present when you did that original backup. As already mentioned, depending on the Outlook version, you will only end up with your outlook folder structure and your emails. You will have to set up your accounts once again and possibly the rules if you had any. From memory with Outlook 2003 it kept the account settings but you lost the rules but with 2007 you lose the account settings too.

You will lose all emails between the date of that original backup and now but then if you want to get them back you will need to replace Outlook.pst with your latest one. I'm not sure if there is any way of merging pst files so that you get all the old emails plus your recent ones so surprise me if you find a way!

 

[EdwardTeach]

Find which user folder the current Outlook.pst file is in. Copy that file to a different location and then replace it with the Outlook.pst you backed up a while back. You should now have all your emails that were present when you did that original backup. As already mentioned, depending on the Outlook version, you will only end up with your outlook folder structure and your emails. You will have to set up your accounts once again and possibly the rules if you had any. From memory with Outlook 2003 it kept the account settings but you lost the rules but with 2007 you lose the account settings too.

You will lose all emails between the date of that original backup and now but then if you want to get them back you will need to replace Outlook.pst with your latest one. I'm not sure if there is any way of merging pst files so that you get all the old emails plus your recent ones so surprise me if you find a way!

Might a safe way to do this would be to set up a new user profile in windows and open the old pst in that? I assume outlook wouldn't try and merge or share data between different user accounts.

 

[bledd]

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

It's a hidden folder, need to attach the pst data files in outlook

 

[kevpuk]

Take a look at this ......backs up and restores not only PST, but accounts as well and more - really good, albeit I seem to remember having to type in a few email account passwords still

I came across it just the other day, and it is simply brilliant ! There are limitations on the Demo (free) version, but they are not really that limiting !

Demo version is available for download free of charge.

Demo version has the following limitations:

Does not restore Microsoft Outlook signatures and stationery.
Does not restore Internet Explorer favorites.
Compressed backup password protection disabled.

 

[Hamster]

Might a safe way to do this would be to set up a new user profile in windows and open the old pst in that? I assume outlook wouldn't try and merge or share data between different user accounts.

Good idea. That should work.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Le Sigh.

Just attach the PST in outlook and browse it. No config needed. Or if you want Just File > Import from PST and point it at the one you copied and let outlook merge it into your existing PST.

No need to complicate it.