Viewing a .pst file without Outlook

JDMurray

I have several archived Outlook .pst files and I need to view the emails they contain on a Windows machine without using Outlook. Nothing intelligible is visible in them using a hex editor. Anyone have an inexpensive solution?

nel

Ive never came across any free one's when there was a requirement for one at work but i was recoomended mail navigator: http://www.mailnavigator.com/press_release.html from a friend. however its $30 and in the end we never purchased it so i cant say from my own experiance what the product is like.

Is there any reason you cant just use outlook to open them?

EDIT: just remembered we were also recommended this: http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/pst_viewer.html however its $50 .

Daniel333

I remember reading a while back there was a plug in or two to import PSTs into Thunderbird. I can't say I have done it...

JDMurray

It turns out that many programs (including Thunderbird) use calls to Outlook for viewing .pst files.

The Mozilla's Import .pst files page pointed me to a very nice program called PSTWalker that doesn't use Outlook, but it's $40US.

And I'm just being lazy not wanting to "pollute" a Windows box with Outlook just to look at a few emails. I'm hoping there might be a quick and free solution to reading .pst files.

sprkymrk

JDMurray wrote:

It turns out that many programs (including Thunderbird) use calls to Outlook for viewing .pst files.

The Mozilla's Import .pst files page pointed me to a very nice program called PSTWalker that doesn't use Outlook, but it's $40US.

And I'm just being lazy not wanting to "pollute" a Windows box with Outlook just to look at a few emails. I'm hoping there might be a quick and free solution to reading .pst files.

Yep, send them to me. I'll open them in Outlook and screenshot it for you, no charge. :P

Or I can email them back to you to read in whatever client you use.

dynamik

That's too funny, I was actually going to say the same thing, Mark.

Actually, just take a snapshot of a VM, download the Outlook 2007 trial, forward them to your gMail account or whatever, and then revert to your snapshot. It's a little more involved than a simple tool, but it'll get the job done and cost you $0.

Kasor

My work forensic unit had the software, let me check with them on Friday and see what program they used.

Nobylspoon

If you are running Vista you can import PST files into Windows Mail.

kerbydogg

What I would do for software that I don't want on my "clean" computer is I have several "junk" VMs to put whatever applications to try out. I have some VMs that are not even connected to the network. Don't ask me why, I'm just really paranoid. lol

Md Maksud

Now a days we are using PSTviewer Pro for open .pst files. It's also excellent client.

paul78

I use PSTWalker. It's decent for retrieving old mail but I found it quite slow on large archives (greater than 500 Mb).

demonfurbie

Personal Message Store Export Utility

ive never really tried it or used outlook but it may work for ya

someslacker

We use the commercial version to convert OSTs to PSTs, but when I need to peek into a PST to find information I use their free viewer.

PST Viewer - Free tool to open and view content of PST files without Ms Outlook

Moe 0101

Kernal data recovery used to have a free trail (30 days) of a .pst viewer. I used it before it got the job done.

jibbajabba

I can give you temporarily access to a Windows Server with Outlook installed - just upload the pst files and delete when done.

PM on its way ...

gunbunnysoulja

This works for free: PST Viewer - Free tool to open and view content of PST files without Ms Outlook

Edit: Just realized someone dug this thread up after 4 years so I'm assuming it's no longer needed

Syznewski

MS started publishing the PST spec a couple of years ago, until then the full PST file structure was quite a mystery. I use Pst Viewer Pro for opening pst files on machines where Outlook and mapi are not present. The free viewers didn't cut it for me. The free stuff I looked at didn't give access to file attachments, and seem sort of spammy.