What is .PST file?

A big question for Outlook users is that “What is .PST?” files because the most of us not familiar with it. PST refers to personal storage table for MS-Outlook data files, which contain your messages and other items of Outlook like attachments, contacts, appointments and many more.
In simple language, it is an extension for Outlook files like “.TXT for Text files”,” .DOC for MS-Word files”, etc. This format is commonly used for web-based mail accounts and also used in to make an archive (backup) of MS-Outlook e-mails and other things connected with Outlook on your computer.

There are two versions of PST files in MS Outlook:

• ANSI
• UNICODE

ANSI: In previous version of Outlook 2002 the PST file is formed in ANSI (American National Standards Institute) format. In it the overall size has limit of 2GB and whenever it exceeds the limit of 2GB in size a corruption take place.

UNICODE : Due to such corruption issues Microsoft Outlook introduces a new version from 2003 to 2013 (Unicode file format). It supports multiple characters sets and has no limit for number of items per folder. Unicode PST file format has an increased file size limit of 20GB which is 10 times of old version (ANSI file format). In outlook 2010 and 2013 the limit of .PST file can be extended up-to 50GB.

After knowing about the PST files the next Question arises were these PST files get stored.

Default locations were Outlook PST files created are:

• Outlook 2007 & previous on Windows XP
  C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
• Outlook 2007 & previous on Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows8
  C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
• Outlook 2010 on Windows XP
  C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents\Outlook Files
• Outlook 2010 & Outlook 2013 on Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
  C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Outlook Files

There is an another shortcut to Open Outlook PST files first open an Outlook >> second go to the file option (available in the menu part) >> after that click on the Data File Management option a small popup window open in front of you.

In open window a data files option is given click on that >> know press the button Open folder or Open file location.

It’s too much hard to understand deeply the concept of ANSI code and UNICODE maybe this article can give you a light knowledge about ANSI & UNICODE.

What is .PST file? Clark Kent 4.5 of 5

A big question for Outlook users is that “ What is . PST? ” files because the most of us not familiar with it. PST refers to personal stor...