Recover OST

stay puft 221 Reputation points
2022-10-03T23:49:40.813+00:00

How can I recover the data in the OST.
The user has a very old OST that has data that I need to recover, and it is NOT in a PST.
PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME TO EXPORT AS A PST!!!

All I have is the OST, and I can't even seem to get outlook to load it. Why on earth would MS create a file that we can't restore?!?!?! It used to be so simple, why is this so hard? What Am I missing????

Outlook Management
Outlook Management
Outlook: A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. ChristyZhang-MSFT 22,336 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2022-10-04T02:05:51.457+00:00

    Hi @stay puft ,

    How can I recover the data in the OST.

    Does the user still have the Exchange account related to the .ost file?

    As i know, Offline Outlook Data Files (.ost) are copies of our Exchange information. We can create a new copy at any time. The user can easily configure his Exchange account in Outlook to review the data he wants to recover. More information, please refer to: Open or import items from an offline Outlook Data File (.ost).

    Hope to help you!


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  2. Gopal Agarwal 401 Reputation points
    2022-11-13T13:14:43.09+00:00

    An offline Outlook data .ost file is the cache file created by MS Outlook when configured through the IMAP/ Exchange server while enabling the Cache Exchange Mode. The .ost file is highly encrypted and cannot open in Outlook directly.

    So to open the OST file in Outlook, you must first convert it into Outlook-supportable file formats such as PST, CSV, etc.

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  3. Oskar Shon 866 Reputation points MVP
    2022-11-14T18:47:05.19+00:00

    Usually if you lost your email account is traded as security issue and you can read information from OST, so you can't migrate this file any time outside the box.
    MS do not giving you any OST converter. That products you can find in 3th part companies only.

    Regards

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