C:\Documents and Settings\jerry_nj\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst

jerry, so glad you asked and lindsey, so glad you answered. I recently made my first attempt to create pst files & upload them to an online data storage service. I evidently tried to upload too many at once. The upload failed and I haven't seen those files since! I keep all client emails, attachments, pdfs in outlook folders by their names. After a year or two, I still need to keep the information but I can't figure out how to get it safely off my pc and into online storage. I tried the location you gave to Jerry but when I got to the Outlook file, there wasn't an Outlook.pst file in there. There were about 8 folders but none were readable.

I showed the name of the .pst file as "Outlook.pst" but in actuality it could be anything. Here on my home 'puter, the OS is Windows XP Pro, and I have Microsoft Office XP Pro. I use Outlook, not Outlook Express, for my e-mail. By default, the "folder" in which my mail resides is named "Outlook.pst." But, if I were to create another .pst for storing/archiving/sorting messages, I could name it whatever I desired.

Even though a .pst is referred to as a mail "folder" it is not the same type of folder as the folders you go through to get to the .pst. So, if you've created additional "Personal Folders Files" (also known as "Outlook Data Files"), you will see more than one "file" in the Outlook folder. In this screen shot, you will see only one .pst file:

If I were using Outlook 2003, the icon for the .pst would look something like this:

If you're having difficulty seeing the .pst files, change your View setting to "Details." That way, you will be able to see the "Type" and you can look for "Office Data File" or "Outlook Data File."

Thanks, for some reason I can't find "Local Settings", nor can XP Search. Now I've used Outlook since '98 and I've still got some folders going back almost that far, back at least to 2000. They are also backed up on an off-line disk.

I had an HP Notebook in use for a few years and it had a folder Exchange right in the root, C:\Exchange. I have several folder sets (.pst) folders one of which is identified as my Off-line folder, the one with the active "inbox". I purchased a new Gateway Notebook in April, and after moving all the folders onto that copy of Outlook it worked fine and had all the history. But, just yesterday I as about to do a manual backup and couldn't find the .pst folders, never mind I had done so a few weeks back (I don't back up very often any more, my business traffic is way down this year - mostly retired). I'll look again.

If one goes to "Tools" "Options" "Mail Setup" "Data files" one can get the full path to the .pst file or files. But I can't seem to get there using Explorer (or XP Search).

Ok, Local Settings is there, I don't know why I didn't see it before. The way I installed XP, my name got lost so the folder is "owner" not "Jerry". Still Search didn't find .pst or Exchange. I guess Exchange is a folder created (or I created it years ago) for holding all the .pst folders. So mine goes ..microsoft/outlook/exchange/*.pst

The failure of the search must be I don't have something set right to make the search display everything.

For such problem I would advise the next application which has many helpful capabilities for solving out outlook problems.

Here is a link that might be useful: pst mail viewer