Solved Outlook 365 - moving .pst from Windows 10

New Lenovo laptop running Windows 11, office 365 with Outlook downloaded.

On previous laptop (Lenovo/Windows 10, Office 2015 (I think)), 2 email accounts running in Outlook, thisname@externalISP.co.uk and thatname@externalISP.co.uk, both addresses would download messages to outlook from the ISP server, and could send from either address within Outlook.

Old laptop had one .pst file, Outlook.pst, copied to external HD.

C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Outlook Files did not exist until I opened Outlook for the first time. Added 2x email accounts during set up, adding details of pop and relay servers (same info as taken from previous Outlook version). In the Outlook Files folder, there are now two .pst files, thisname@externalISP.co.uk.pst and thatname@externalISP.co.uk.pst

I can import the previous outlook.pst file and all the email appear, but I cannot get it to send/receive either address.

I've tried deleting the two named .pst files, renaming the outlook.pst to one of the email addresses, tried deleting the 2 email accounts and relaunching Outlook, it starts by saying thisname@externalISP.co.uk.pst cannot be found, but will eventually launch outlook, but the send/receive issue persists.

Can anyone help, please?

I want to import all my old emails from Windows 10, and have the two external email addresses set up within the Outlook 365 (downloaded) app, not the web app, and be able to send/receive from both addresses.

Thanks

You can copy the .pst files (as you have), but you need to recreate the email address(es) from scratch in Outlook and point them to the data file location.

allan said:

You can copy the .pst files (as you have), but you need to recreate the email address(es) from scratch in Outlook and point them to the data file location.

Click to expand...

Could you tell me how to recreate the addresses from scratch and point them to the data file location, please?

1. Open Control Panel, Mail (Microsoft Outlook) - that will take you to the first image above. If there is only an Email item in Control Panel, open that - it will be the same image
2. Click on Email Accounts
3. Click on the Email Tab
4. Click on New
5. Tick Manual Setup... at the bottom and click on Next
6. Select "Pop or Imap" (which is what I assume you want) and Next - that will take you to the second image above
7. Fill out your details and in the bottom right where it says "Deliver new messages to:" tick "Existing Outlook Data File"
8. Click on Browse, point it to your .pst file, then Next or Okay, and go from there.

This is my PERSONAL take on exporting Outlook account from machine to machine.

Firstly export the PST file to the identical path structure from PC1 to PC 2
Secondly, export the key at [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\Steve] from PC1 to PC2 and import it to the registry.
Thirdly, export all rules from PC1 to PC2
Start Outlook on PC2, it will ask for the email account password(s), enter the information and allow it to proceed.
Finally import any rules into PC2 and force them to run.

allan said:

View attachment 84787

View attachment 84788

1. Open Control Panel, Mail (Microsoft Outlook) - that will take you to the first image above. If there is only an Email item in Control Panel, open that - it will be the same image
2. Click on Email Accounts
3. Click on the Email Tab
4. Click on New
5. Tick Manual Setup... at the bottom and click on Next
6. Select "Pop or Imap" (which is what I assume you want) and Next - that will take you to the second image above
7. Fill out your details and in the bottom right where it says "Deliver new messages to:" tick "Existing Outlook Data File"
8. Click on Browse, point it to your .pst file, then Next or Okay, and go from there.

Click to expand...

This has worked, thank you Allan. I've sent and received test messages to and from various addresses, all of which work, and everything is downloaded from the external ISP server.

I've ended up with two folder structures in Outlook, one headed 'Outlook' from the imported pst file, and one headed thisemail@externalISP.co.uk. The latter is empty, and doesn't do anything, and I think might be a hangover from my going round in circles trying to get the setup to work. It doesn't seem to stop anything working, so I'm going to ignore it, and hope for the best!