Solved Outlook 2010 file locations

[allend66]

Hi everyone.
I've trawled the Microsoft community but I can't find a decent solution, and I've been pulling my hair out.

I've recently started using Outlook 2010 (Pro) to gather my new job's work emails.

Scenario:
In Outlook I added my main work email, "d.allen@..." to my profile. Great. The default .pst file location is "C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Outlook Files" which is what I wanted, although it created another .pst file named in "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook". The email works great but the default .pst file stays the same size, 265Kb, so its not changing as I send and receive emails.

Then I add another work email, "info@...". It creates another .pst, again in the AppData folder.
A 3rd email account is added, again creating a 3rd .pst file in AppData.

Issues:
(1)I want all my .pst files in the default directory, "C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Outlook Files".
As per Microsoft's instructions, if I want to move a .pst file, I first shutdown Outlook, move the file, then relaunch Outlook, which will complain it can't find the .pst file and prompt me to select a file to open - except this just recreates .pst files with numbers in brackets afer the name, all in the original AppData folder. This then messes up the email configuration which results in send/receive errors.

I have even tried to change them under the Mail applet in Control Panel.

(2)I cannot change the default .pst file. All other .pst files have the "Set as default" button greyed out.
(3)The default doesn't do much, though I will use this as my archive for older emails (there's a maximum 1Gb email account cuota on the server), but I don't have the option of combining email accounts into the same .pst file.
(4)Why has it created .pstt instead of .pst?











Please can anyone help with the above issues?

Regards
D

 

[Ranger4]

You seem to be trying to do something that is not supported by Outlook. In my Outlook 2013 the .pst files are stored under Documents/Outlook which seems the same as yours.
But there is no Data File shown in my Account settings, only my email accounts.
It seems that you may be trying to set up Data Files as an email account.

You may not agree, but I don't think you can achieve what you want as the .pst files can only be opened in Outlook so having a separate data file is probably going to cause conflicts.

 

[allend66]

Thanks for the reply.
So are you saying that for each new email account added to Outlook, a separate .pst file is created for it?
And if that's the case, (I can live with that) why are they created in AppData folder, not Documents\Outlook Files?

Is there a registry tweak I can modify to make it save the files in Documents?
Thanks

 

[Ranger4]

I have one email pop3 account which is shown in my Documents/Outlook folder with it's associated Data file. Which seems the same as yours.

My other email account is with Windows Live Mail & it is shown in my C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.

Both email accounts show up in Outlook Account Settings but as there are 2 separate email account providers Windows seems to store the WLM in a different location. The reason for that is beyond me. The main thing is that it works.

 

[allend66]

ok, but what about following Microsoft's own advice: Quitting Outlook, moving the .pst files, reopening Outlook, pointing Outlook to open the .pst file in the new location?

This simply does NOT work - worse than that it actually breaks the email accounts when the program recreates new .pst files (with numbers in brackets) in the AppData folder. (see the attachment above)

Seriously, no registry tweak to solve this??

Cheers.

 

[Ranger4]

I cannot answer your question why you can't do that, because I don't know. Perhaps someone else will come in & assist.

There may be registry tweaks that will fix it but great care needs to be taken with registry tweaking.

Is it really important for you to have your .pst files in the one directory, as the only way you can access them is through Outlook, as it's not possible to view them directly.

 

[allend66]

Thanks Ranger4

It's not what I want but I might have to compromise.

Bloody annoying though.

 

[pbcopter]

See this. I use it to accomplish what you are looking for.

Change default location for pst and ost files - MSOutlook.info

 

[allend66]

See this. I use it to accomplish what you are looking for.

Change default location for pst and ost files - MSOutlook.info

pbcopter - Excellent find, thank you!

 

[pbcopter]

You're most welcome.

Happy Holidays!