Most business uses Microsoft Outlook as their email client. It allows the user to read from their email accounts using a common interface instead of accessing the various webmail interfaces.
Emails downloaded in outlook are saved as, obviously, outlook data file. And they can be either in a PST or OST format.
Other than storing your email messages, both PST and OST, stores other outlook data such as calendar, contact and tasks.
PST file is generally created if you have set your email client to download emails from the email server using the POP protocol.
OST file is generally created if you have configured outlook to access emails from the email server using the “Exchange” or “IMAP” protocol.
Location of Outlook Data Files for PST and OST
Generally the outlook data files are stored in different locations in the computer, depending if its a pst or ost file and the version of Outlook that is instaeed.
New outlook data files stored in the following folders. (Outlook 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / 365)
For OST files, generally these are saved here. “C:\Users\<your username>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\”
And for PST file, the files are usually saved in the folder “C:\Users\<your username>\documents\Outlook Files\”
If you are using the older versions of outlook, they are stored in the following (Outlook 2007 and prior)
Either ost or pst data file, generally they are saved in following location. “C:\Users\<your username>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\”