can you import pst files in the version of outlook in the office home and business 2024 single software purchase?

* I'd like to get direct verification before blowing an extra $100 to get Office 2024 Home and Business (vs just Home). But I may just have to take the chance if I don't get direct verification. If I do, I'll post my experience for the benefit of others. Thanks.

* So, I bit the bullet and purchased MS Office 2024 Home and Business. Here's some info I hope may be of help to others.

* To play it safe, I purchased the software directly from MS. They obviously don't really want to sell this product, because links kept re-directing me to MS 365. But I eventually found the correct order page.

* I loaded the software to a relatively new (1 yr old) laptop running Windows 11. A barebones freebie version of MS 365 also came pre-loaded. I wasn't sure whether I had to uninstall this first, but I decided to leave it and let the download software alert me if needed.

* The download was a bit confusing. After purchasing it, I clicked on a button "Redeem Now". I expected to download an installation file and product key. Instead, the next page was an invitation to upgrade to MS 365. Huh? A reviewer on another site had mentioned something similar happening and thought he had been ripped off.

* I then opened the MS programs (Word, Excel, ...) in my programs menu. Under "Account" information in each program, there now appeared a MS Office Home and Business 2024 license. So all was well.

* I opened up Outlook Classic and connected to my mail server OK.

* On my old computer, running Windows 10 and Office 2010, I copied the outlook.pst file onto a flash drive and transferred the file to my new computer.

* I followed MS instructions for importing the outlook.pst file into Outlook Classic.

* A message came up along the lines of (don't remember the exact wording), "This file has an incompatible format and will be saved to its current directory."

* I was able to open all my old email and calendar. Success! (so I thought).

* Initial glitches:

• I could send new email from Outlook Classic, but I could not receive new email. I deleted the outlook.pst file and started over. I could now send and receive. I noticed that the outlook files freshly created in 2024 were in different file locations than in 2010. I played around a bit downloading the old outlook.pst file to a different location. I now have separate directories for new mail vs old mail. Something I can live with, but I'll play around to see whether I can integrate them seamlessly.
• Something bizarre happened when I opened Outlook on my old computer. Most of the old files had been duplicated. During the setup of Outlook 2024 on the new computer, there had been some "synchronization" process. That might have had something to do with it. I didn't expect it to affect anything on my old computer though. Oh well.

* Conclusion: Outlook Classic in MS Office Home and Business 2024 will open an outlook.pst file created by the Outlook version in Office 2010. But what I had hoped for was a seamless import of the old outlook,pst file and just adding new items to it. That didn't happen. Also, be sure to backup your old outlook.pst file and archive it out of harms way, because the transfer process can modify the outlook.pst file on the old computer somehow when you use the old computer to access email. I've got a lot more tinkering to do.

Update:

* Besides the change in coding of the .pst file in Outlook Classic 2003 that you referenced above, there was a change in the type of file used by Outlook Classic, starting with Outlook Classic 2016 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/overview-of-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-222eaf92-a995-45d9-bde2-f331f60e2790#picktab=classic_outlook):

"In earlier versions of Outlook, IMAP accounts also used an Outlook Data File (.pst). In Outlook 2016 and Outlook for Microsoft 365, IMAP accounts use Offline Outlook Data Files (.ost)." This, I believe, has been the root cause of my problems.

* My old computer was setup many moons ago to access email via the mail server at my cable Internet service provider. It was configured as a POP account, the only option available then. In Outlook Classic 2024, POP continues to use .pst files.

* On my new computer, when I initially setup Outlook Classic 2024, I first used the "Connect Automatically" operation to setup my email account. By default, that setup an IMAP account and an .ost file on MS One Drive (cloud storage).

* The "import" function, as I understand it, is supposed to import all the data from the old .pst file into the new .ost file. But apparently, it doesn't always work. This, I believe, is why I received a "file incompatibility" message, and the import process created a .pst file on the local drive.

* Thus I now had two separate email accounts: an old account working off the .pst file, and a new account working off the new .ost file. New incoming email was directed to the new .ost file.

* To resolve all this mess, I deleted the .pst and .ost files and started fresh. I used "Connect Manually" to setup my email account on Outlook Classic 2024 as a POP account.

* This time, I did not use the import function. Under "File"-->"Account Settings-->"Data Files",

I entered "path/outlook.pst" and set it as the default. Under "File"-->"Account Settings"-->"Email"-->"Selected account delivers new messages to the following location", I verified "(email account)/Inbox" in "path/outlook.pst". Note: When making changes, you need to ensure that new messages are delivered to the same file, if you want all your email consolidated.

* So I got all this working on my new computer at last. But, because of the initial IMPAP account setup (not sure), the old files on my new computer have also now been duplicated. I think I'll need to manually delete the duplicates (or else leave it alone as long as I have sufficient storage space; need to confirm). But my old and new email are consolidated, and my previous calendar entries are intact; so I'm happy.

* There's probably a more efficient way to do all this. But I hope my story is of help to others. Thank you, Hornblower409, for all your help.

BHCDS

Thank you for the very detailed report. I have never done an Outlook 2010 to Outlook 2024 upgrade, so your experiences definitely take precedence over mine. But here are my comments from doing other Outlook upgrades.

1. You should be able to purchase Office Home & Business 2024 directly from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-business-2024/cfq7ttc0pbm7
2. If you run into any problems downloading the install files, login to your Microsoft Account and use your Product Key here https://setup.office.com/
3. I have always done an "in-place" upgrade and it (usually) runs pretty smoothly. Your experiences doing a clean install and transfer is very informative.
4. You said "importing the outlook.pst file". By this do you mean that in Outlook 2024 you did File -> Open -> Open Outlook Data File and pointed it to the PST you copied over from your Outlook 2010? Or did you use some other method?
5. You said "I now have separate directories for new mail vs old mail". This is not normal. Once Outlook 2024 upgraded the PST you copied over, it should be able to serve as your only PST, for both old and new mail. Not sure how you got into this situation.
6. You said "most of the old files [in Outlook 2010] had been duplicated". My guess is that this was due to you having two PSTs on the Outlook 2024 PC. But I'm not sure exactly how it happened. Using IMAP I can envision the Outlook 2024 PC syncing with the IMAP server (and uploading the data from the new PST), and then when the Outlook 2010 PC synced, it pulled down the copy of the new PST. But this is pure guesswork on my part.

yes i am on a windows based pc. so i understand your reply to be that the office and business 2024 single purchase office package has classic outlook that can upload pst files from a previous edition downloaded from an old pc.

i am puzzled by your comment on old pst files, what is old? I have always been able to upload all previous pst files with upgrades to computers and the office package over the years. i am currently using office 2019 and have emails (and therefore pst files) that are over 20 years old. I need to bring all of my emails that exist on on office 2019 over to a new computer with classic outlook 2024 regardless of age, is this possible, if not what is the logic or criteria and how could there be an issue if they are all pst file, what does age have to do with it? thanks

Dear Michael Costanzo,

Thank you for using Microsoft products and posting in the Microsoft Support Community.

I realise that you are trying to import the PST file in the Outlook version of Office Home and Business 2024 single software purchase, please point out if I am misunderstanding.

You have the right idea. Firstly, if you are on Windows, then classic Outlook is included in Office Home and Business 2024 itself, so you can use classic Outlook directly for importing .pst files. If you are a Mac system, then classic Outlook is not included in Office Home and Business 2024, you can purchase it separately.

Anyway, as long as you have classic Outlook, then you can do the operation of importing .pst files. Also, I need to remind you that your .pst file version cannot be too old because if your .pst file is older but Outlook version is newer, then there may be incompatibility resulting in not being able to import the .pst file.

Thank you for your patience and support.😊Please feel free to let me know how it is going by answering below.

Best Regards

Vivian - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist