How to Find Where MS Outlook Files are Saved

You are trying to backup your Microsoft Outlook file and need to know where to find those files.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Microsoft Outlook

1. First if you just want to backup your Outlook.pst file, you should use the Outlook 2002 and later backup tool by Microsoft at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010875321033.aspx

2. If you have an earlier version of Outlook you will want to do a search of your computer for the files *.pst. You can do a search by right clicking on the start button and do Search, choosing your C: drive and then searching for the file. The *.pst files include all your personal folders, calendars, etc for Outlook.

3. Various versions of windows have moved the default locations of your PST files, for example in Vista the typical place for Office 2007 outlook is:
   C:\Users\your-user-id\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
   
   A good tutorial that tells you about your specific folder locations without doing a search is: http://ask-leo.com/where_is_my_outlook_pst_file_located.html

Tips & Warnings

• Some pst files will be encrypted, if you want to backup your files remember your password if you save encrypted folders.
• Don't use pst files in public places, even if you delete them an novice computer person can use a file recovery program to find those pst's that were deleted.