PST Files - A really basic question

[britechguy]

I have literally not touched an email account using POP3 access in well over a decade (and won't set up POP for clients, it's IMAP or Exchange, depending on the email client being used) so I have not dealt with PST files at all for so long that I don't recall much about them.

My main question is can there be more than one PST for a given email account? Someone on one of the blind groups keeps describing PST files coming into existence when he creates folders in Outlook, and that sounds odd to me, but I could be forgetting something.

Believe me, I've been pushing anyone and everyone away from POP3 access for a very long time now. I just want to know what happens "behind the scenes" should someone choose POP3 access with Outlook and begins creating folders in Outlook.

 

[sapphirescales]

and won't set up POP for clients, it's IMAP or Exchange

What do you do for clients who have an email service that only supports POP3? Those clients are the bane of my existence. Thankfully it's becoming rarer now but I still have clients that use old weird email services that only use POP3.

Someone on one of the blind groups keeps describing PST files coming into existence when he creates folders in Outlook, and that sounds odd to me, but I could be forgetting something.

Sounds like somethings hella corrupted with the original PST file. I don't know. I try to avoid POP3 whenever possible. Have you tried running the repair PST program on the original file?

 

[britechguy]

I am not doing any active work for the person I referred to from one of the blind groups, so I won't be doing any repairing of anything.

I also haven't had a client who is using an obscure POP-only email service in years now, for which I am eternally grateful!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

By default, you'd start out with 1x PST per mail account in Outlook.
One could go add additional PSTs....which, would add a whole new local mailbox to Outlooks navigation pane. That new local mailbox has the whole Outlook stack of stuff in it..Inbox, calendar, contacts, sent, drafts, notes, tasks, etc.

I've never seen a "PST per folder"...as in, when I go add a folder under my inbox, such as..."Technibble Newsletters'....to store my TN email....by default Outlook adds that folder to the PST where that mailbox is stored. It would not create another PST just for that addtional Inbox subfolder I create. Or even another folder within the root of my mailbox.

I also recall the "mail settings" for an account, can only choose 1x local mailbox to download all email to. And...with a PST representing that local mailbox....I don't see how one can stack a bunch of PSTs...representing folders....within a single mail account in Outlook. I know Outlook can have many mail accounts, thus....many PSTs....but still, just on a 1 to 1 basis. Suppose you could have multiple PSTs within Outlook and have a single mail account...and you could "drag and drop" email across to another PST. Would be a weird way of doing things. You recollection seems sound.

 

[Blues]

I forget what it is but you can make archival folders that will be their own file though I forget if it is a PST or another extension. This was commonly done at a prior place of work where we had the exchange server mailbox size limits set and enforced. These were local files that were not backed up but allowed email hoarders to keep a generally unnecessary amount and I recall these files back then having a file size limit IIRC around 30GB. I had users with multiple PST due to the first ones reaching the size limits. So your user may be backing up emails to a PST file and doing this but hard to say otherwise I would say PST file corruption issue sounds like a strong candidate.

 

[britechguy]

Thank you gentlemen.

I suspect this is another of those situations where the individual is doing all sorts of stuff that no typical end user should be doing. The fact that he's using POP3 "just because" when his email service supports IMAP is first among those.

 

[HCHTech]

forget what it is but you can make archival folders that will be their own file though I forget if it is a PST or another extension. This was commonly done at a prior place of work where we had the exchange server mailbox size limits set and enforced. These were local files that were not backed up but allowed email hoarders to keep a generally unnecessary amount

Yes, I still have one of these clients. The worst offenders have 6 or 8 archive PSTs, each between 30 and 45GB! Management demanded continued access to all of this old email, so that's pretty-much the only way to do it. Several of the old guard are going to have to retire or die off before we can change the policy, sadly. Worse yet, we keep them on the server so they can be backed up. Despite every available source warning that this would lead to corruption or other bad things, it never has, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[britechguy]

This leads to another question, if I'm trying to get someone converted from POP3 to IMAP for the same account, what is the procedure to do this presuming that Outlook Classic is the email client in use?

I imagine the PST is somehow set up for access "sans active account" and then the account set up again "from scratch" and in parallel for IMAP access going forward. But I've never done this and wouldn't mind knowing the mechanics for doing so.

@HCHTech - there is simply no reasoning with hoarders, whether of physical stuff or cyber stuff. The idea that you could, would, or, most importantly, should have 6 plus email archives in double digit gigabytes in size is ridiculous. No one used to do this sort of thing for real mail, and you don't do it for email. You purge what is one-and-done when it's done. Making the distinction between what's junk, what needs to be viewed once and action taken immediately making it disposable, and what needs to be filed is not rocket science.

 

[Markverhyden]

A PST is a stand alone database file that can be read by Outlook. As has been mentioned you get these by setting up an POP3 email account or by using the archive function in Outlook. In the case of archive it doesn't matter what the original store is. You can have OST, Exchange or IMAP, or PST, POP3. When you archive it a single PST file gets created. Now that MS OS's only. macOS creates some alien abomination that can't really be used like PST's.

By definition each time you setup that existing POP3 account a new PST get's created. This is why people who have had email accounts for so long have multiple PST's for the same email account. You can simplify it by importing each old PST into Outlook and then manually copying it over to the new POP3. The same for IMAP and Exchange.

On the matter of POP3. I'd be surprised if there's a public service offering email that does not have IMAP implemented. Even if they don't mention it. Yes, when some email accounts are automatically setup, Outlook "detects" POP3. But I've always been able to manually change the setup to IMAP and use default IMAP settings. Even then if it is setup as POP3 you can log into webmail and see everything.

 

[britechguy]

Even then if it is setup as POP3 you can log into webmail and see everything.

Not necessarily, though I do take your point.

At whatever interval is the "purge interval" after download, stuff disappears from a POP (and I mean POP and only POP) configuration because that's the actual design. I went through hell a number of years ago when I client set up the same account using POP on multiple machines and that "purge interval" was on-download, anywhere. Given that each of those machines was doing its sync to the server, and purging downloaded messages immediately (which once was the default), new messages would only end up on the machine that did the original download and never show up on the other devices.

I can definitely see everything for Gmail, though, because for years IMAP has been their default access method and POP has to be enabled. And even when POP is enabled, they have some sort of parallel setup where that account's mail repository remains available by IMAP, too. But they're the only email service provider I know of that operates that way, just as they're the only one I know of that uses labels which are implemented in email clients as IMAP folders, and if you set up a folder in a client, it's translated to a label on the Gmail side.

 

[fincoder]

I imagine the PST is somehow set up for access "sans active account"

You do that by simply removing the account. The PST file doesn't get deleted (you could always make a copy of the file just in case) and remains open in Outlook, only difference is no new email is delivered to its inbox.

and then the account set up again "from scratch" and in parallel for IMAP access going forward.

Yes it's as simple as that. Don't forget to change the default folder that's opened when starting Outlook, otherwise it will keep uselessly opening the old Inbox on start.

Using IMAP or Exchange doesn't preclude the use of PST files. Others have mentioned Archive which uses a PST. For IMAP users it can be useful to have a PST file set as the default data file. Making it the default data file means it's used for Contacts and Calendar data. Otherwise that stuff is stored in an OST which is a temporary file.

When converting a user to IMAP or Exchange, I always keep the PST file present in Outlook and explain how any folders in the active account tree are backed up to the server and accessible from other devices. That way the user can move some of their emails from offline folders to online folders by dragging. They might decide to leave some email data in the PST or use it for archiving from the online folders automatically after a period of time to prevent online storage filling up.

 

[britechguy]

@fincoder

Much appreciated.