To access .pst files to recover archived emails

You can archive emails from within Outlook to remove emails from your email server. This helps lighten the load on the server, and your email client. Especially if you have been using the same account for years.

This is handy if you change roles, and wish to remove emails from that account prior to hand-over to the new staff if they are of a sensitive nature.

It is just good house-keeping too, the less emails on the email server the better. The same goes for sub-folders, and even sub-folder structure. Shorter folder names and character strings means synchronisation between the email server and your email client are fast and efficient.

To access an archived .pst file:

First, this must be done within Outlook, you can’t simply open the .pst from within Windows Explorer.

If the archive is in Google Workspace, download to your client first:

Once the archive is downloaded from your cloud storage, you need to open it from within Outlook by the following steps:

File\Open and Export\Open an Outlook Data File:

Browse to your file location and open the .pst file, and select open. The archive will now appear in the sidebar alongside your email accounts: