outlook cant import .pst file

Hi @Abberfield Industries, 

I hope you are having a great day.

I'm reaching out again to follow up on your issue and check if everything has been resolved. My goal is to ensure your experience remains smooth and hassle-free. If you're still encountering any problems or have run into new challenges, please let me know which steps you're currently stuck on and happy to provide further help whenever you need it. 

If you have any further questions, feel free to tag me in your reply so I can assist you directly.

Looking forward to your update.

That worked . Thank you!! Are you able to direct me where do i look to see if I already have a Exchange Online Archive license?

Hi. the other day I successfully turned off New outlook and classic outlook opened, and did an initial import and export - which worked. Today I open outlook -turned new outlook off so classic outlook opened. have tired an export test which seemed to export but when I try to open the pst, the folders are created but they are empty. The folders that I am exporting out off keep removing the data from view and saying, "click here to view more on Microsoft exchange". Do you think this could be why? If so is there a fix to this?

Importing a pst-file is not needed to see its contents. This is only recommended when you want to store that content within your mailbox again.

To connect to a pst-file and see its contents use;
Settings-> Files-> Outlook Data Files-> Add file

If Classic Outlook is no longer available on your computer, you can install it from here;
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/install-or-reinstall-classic-outlook-on-a-windows-pc-5c94902b-31a5-4274-abb0-b07f4661edf5

As an alternative to using locally stored pst-files, you could consider obtaining a license which contains the Exchange Online Archive. This will grant you up to 1.5TB of additional storage for archiving email data.

Hi @Abberfield Industries, 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

According to your concern, this is a known limitation that New Outlook currently does not support importing PST files directly. If you want to import .pst file, the most reliable way is revert back and import through the Classic Outlook desktop app. 

However, this problem will no longer concern you in the near future. Since August 2025, Microsoft has started rolling out .pst related features to address this issue. In some versions (e.g. my outlook version 1.2025.1001.500), the option Outlook Data Files is available to open a PST file but currently it only supports read-only access.

  As the newest information, further development of importing .pst for New Outlook will start rolling out in early January 2026. For more information about this update, you can follow Microsoft 365 Roadmap | Microsoft 365 

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.  

I'm looking forward to your reply.

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