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I have several PST files that are not in any one of the potential default PST locations and yet, Outlook has no problem finding them and opening them up upon starting up. For example:

%USERPROFILE%\Email\Outlook\Tests.pst

I've scanned the registry and these PST files don't show up at all! Yet, Outlook still knows of them and where they are. How so?

Registry Items, such as:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\PST

Are empty.

I've read numerous articles about default PST locations and Outlook Registry locations for PST files. These don't seem to apply to my configuration.

I am using Office 2019. Almost all the articles, I've viewed, reference up to Office 2016. So, this might have been something that changed in Office 2019.

I'm aware of the ForcePst Registry Key. It's not in use on my system, and I would prefer not to use it.

So, how does Outlook know the PST locations of it's stores?

Edit:

The main reason I'm asking this (besides pure curiosity) is that I am often switching between computers and I would like to automate, as much as possible, the transfer of my data from one PC to another, including the setup of PST files. Currently, going into the Outlook Mail Accounts Dialog and manually adding each PST file is a very irksome manual step.

Edit II:

After a bit digging around, I've found the following registry section:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\<Profile Name>\

For me, this contains a long of hexadecimal based keys, that each contains a fair amount of binary data. While it looks promising, on one hand, that this is perhaps the location of where this data is saved, it looks like it would be a lot of reverse engineering work to find out the actual file names.

James John McGuire 'Jahmic'
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    “I am using Office 2019. Almost all the articles, I've viewed, reference up to Office 2016.” - You would be hard pressed to find an article that applies to Office 2016 that doesn’t apply to Office 2019. – Ramhound Jun 02 '23 at 11:34

2 Answers2

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Office stores much of its data outside of the registry.

Most of the data is stored under the folder
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\16.0.

However, the format of the included files is not documented and is mostly unknown.

harrymc
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The main reason I'm asking this (besides pure curiosity) is that I am often switching between computers and I would like to automate, as much as possible, the transfer of my data from one PC to another, including the setup of PST files.

As i know, the data file is saved in the path on your computer but not registry. What's your account? If your account can be configure as Exchange in Outlook, you don't need to worry about how to sync it in Outlook of other computers. You just need to configure your account as Exchange account in other computers, then the data of your mailbox will be synced.

Christy
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