Outlook Personal Folders Issue

November 21, 2012 12:50 PM

Outlook 2007: Made a mistake; can I fix it?

I deleted the email account associated with my main PST "personal folders" tree (the bit where you tell it where to connect, not the actual inbox or anything). I now cannot seem to create a new email account which uses this old tree, despite, to all appearances, there being no account associated with it. Am I totally hosed? How do I get all of my contacts, calendar items, email rules, old email folder tree, and all that garbage to the new PST, if that's my only option?

I have no genuinely recent backup of this file, just auto-archived subsets. I know, I know. I thought I did.

posted by maxwelton to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

what do you mean you deleted the email account? deleted it from outlook? you should still be able to access your old pst even if you have no email addresses set up in outlook. was it an work one that's an exchange address? or like a personal yahoo/gmail one? if an exchange one that might be the basis of your problem.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:01 PM on November 21, 2012

You need to import the PST file.


The location of the PST:
(from: Microsoft.Com)

Windows Vista
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Microsoft Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

How to Import:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/import-outlook-items-from-a-personal-folders-file-pst-HA102538008.aspx
posted by roboton666 at 1:46 PM on November 21, 2012

What I'm saying is, create the new account, then import the PST
posted by roboton666 at 1:47 PM on November 21, 2012

Response by poster: I can access the old PST. What I cannot make happen is put email into that PST's inbox, because trying to associate an email account with it brings up a message saying that the folder is already in use.
posted by maxwelton at 1:47 PM on November 21, 2012

Response by poster: I'm an idiot. While during account setup it says you can't use personal folders, it turns out all pop boxes go into that inbox anyway. Many thanks for suggestions and help.
posted by maxwelton at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2012

Response by poster: (As I said to a friend, don't let me near this stuff. I can program, but for some reason system stuff just is a disaster when I get involved.)
posted by maxwelton at 2:00 PM on November 21, 2012

Ahh..Now I see, I remember that problem. There's a place where you can set the default folder for incoming mail. I forget where that is though.
posted by roboton666 at 2:50 PM on November 21, 2012