The personal folders file, with a file extension of .PST, is used by various Microsoft interpersonal communication products, including Microsoft Exchange Client, Windows Messaging and all versions of Microsoft Outlook. PST is the abbreviation for “Personal Storage Table”.
For Microsoft Outlook, all the items, including mail messages, folders, posts, appointments, meeting requests, contacts, distribution lists, tasks, task requests, journals, notes, etc. are saved locally in the corresponding .pst file, which is normally located in a predefined folder.
For Windows 95, 98 and ME, the folder is:
drive:WindowsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
or
drive:WindowsProfilesuser nameLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
For Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 server, the folder is:
drive:Documents and Settingsuser nameLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
or
drive:Documents and Settingsuser nameApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
For Windows Vista or 7, the folder is:
drive:Usersuser nameAppDataLocalMicrosoftOutlook
For Windows 8, the folder is:
drive:Users<username>AppDataLocalMicrosoftOutlook
or
drive:Users<username>RoamingLocalMicrosoftOutlook
You may also search for file “Outlook.pst”, the default name of the Outlook .pst file, in your local computer to find the location of the file.
Moreover, you can change the location of the PST file, make a backup of it, or create multiple PST files to store different contents.
As all your personal communication data and information are stored in the PST file, it is very important to you. When it is get corrupted for various reasons, we highly recommend you to use DataNumen Outlook Repair to recover all data in it.
Microsoft Outlook 2002 and earlier versions use an old PST file format that has a file size limit of 2GB, and it only supports ANSI text encoding. The old PST file format is also called the ANSI PST format commonly. Since Outlook 2003, a new PST file format is introduced, which supports files as large as 20GB (this limit can also be increased to 33TB by modifying the registry) and Unicode text encoding. The new PST file format is called the Unicode PST format generally. It is rather easy to convert the PST files from the old ANSI format to the new Unicode format with DataNumen Outlook Repair.
The PST file can be encrypted with a password to protect the confidential information in it. However, it is very easy to use DataNumen Outlook Repair to break the protection without requiring the original passwords.