Outlook .pst Emergency

[dinowuff]

Uh real quick here:

POP3 email messages are downloaded from the email server to your computer and stored on the hard drive. (again basic rule of thumb)

If IMAP is used all your email messages are stored on the server and never removed. In most cases Outlook creates a local cache of messages on your hard drive to speed up the opening of emails, but the originals are not touched. Also, with IMAP (this is the big one!) your sent mail and drafts are uploaded to the server! Because of this, you will see the same incoming and sent messages from any computer as long as your mail program is configured for IMAP

In short the reason you cannot see the email is because it is no longer on the server.

YO MLF or any one else, know how to get it back? Can you export to a server???

[morganlefay]

It has to be imported into the mailbox on the server. You export the mailbox to a pst then connect to the server then import it into the new mailbox. Personally I still do not understand the drag and drop procedure??? Where is the original pst come from??? Was it exported??

Even when migrating to a new exchange you export then import...there is no drag and drop???

actually....there is when you forklift a whole information store...but that is an entirely different procedure.

I think the pst was dropped into the mailbox as a subfolder..thats why its not viewable in the inbox...

Check Tools>Options>Mail setup> Datafiles

Pst files are used for archive...maybe the original mail is in an OST...thry searching for *.ost in the users profle ..c:\documents and settings\


MLF

[dinowuff]

Hey MLF

In POP3 and IMAP pst's are used in place of OST's.

So like SMTP if you delete the OST file when in cached mode, the client just re creates the thing. Same with POP3 or IMAP but the one difference. Delete the pst with POP3 and pretty much your email is gone. Delete the pst with IMAP and the client will recreate.

EDIT: Yea I'm with you on the copy paste or drag and drop thing!

[morganlefay]

If that is that is so Dino...I think the pst was dropped in the mailbox...still as a subfolder as OP stated the new pst is over a gig after dropping it into the new mailbox...so it is there...just not visable...or sitting at the root of the mail folder.

I would go into view and expand all groups in the mail folders

MLF

[dinowuff]

[offtopic]
Message states that I must spread it around some more before giving it to MLF again.
But I don't want to spread it around, I just want to give it to MLF and ONLY MLF!
[/offtopic]

CyberBob: Any Update?

[morganlefay]

[offtopic] tanks dino... [/offtopic]

MLF

[Cider]

Update , would be good.

Very interested to hear what happened here coz I dont understand the Drag drop either ...

If you dragged , dropped the emails you should still have the original .pst file ...

[CyberB0b]

Thanks for all the input. I have resolved the issue of the missing emails by pulling them off the old email server which was previously inaccessible. Now I am continuing on this recovery out of curiosity.

So, to clarify... The structure of the Outlook 2007 profile is that the original personal data file for POP3 is listed first and beneath that is the IMAP .pst. I dragged the data from the top inbox folder to the bottom inbox folder because that's what the guy at rackspace told me to do. This all happened before the DNS pointed to the IMAP server so the email is not and never was on the IMAP server. The point was to have the data in the IMAP .pst, so when the server connected it would automatically sync and upload to the IMAP server (probably the wrong way to do things but it's what I did). Then, the plan was to get rid of the POP3 data file and only have IMAP on the profile.

Because I used the "move" option instead of "copy", the email was removed from the original POP3 .pst so it is no longer there. Since the IMAP .pst is larger I know the email is there. There are no subfolders on the IMAP server or in the .pst.

I haven't done anything with the file today since I got the emails from the old POP3 server (emails were set to stay on server for 30 days) and had other issues to take care of, but I will check out some of these options tonight when I have a minute. Thanks to everyone for being so helpful. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

[Cheap Scotch Ron]

Can you export to a server???

If you are running a *unix mailer (.e.g postfix) then you will first need to convert the .pst to an mbox. Then move the mbox file to the unix machine and you're done. Be sure to empty your unix mailbox before copying the converted file to the unix box. Depending on the distro, the location of the mbox files vary.

*** Also, if you are running IMAP (e.g. cyrus) on your *unix mail sever, double check the mbox location/directory. It's not in the same place as postfix. I ran into this problem sometime ago. Took me a while to realize that cryus installed it's own mbox dir that was diff than the postfix. Was able to consolidate via config file.

google "pst to mbox" for scripts that convert the file formats.
do a find on ur unix box to locate the mbox directory.

Alternatively, I believe Thunderbird has an import/export feature built into the product.

[mark_boyle2009]

I have all the kit u need to fix.
1. PST (Microsofts PST File)
2. OST (Microsofts Offline Store Files)

Drop me a pm and I can fix either in the event of corruption or failure.

Mb