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How to Open OST File on Another Computer? – Solved

This post will help you in understanding all possible ways to open OST file on another computer. We all know, a separate OST file is created by IMAP server with respect to individual profile.

Mack John

Your situation can dictate what methods are available to you to open OST file on another computer. Overall, it’s a very simple and straight-forward process.

An understanding of how Microsoft Outlook saves your mail and other data in OST/PST files can help you properly manage OST files whenever you encounter them.

In this article, we’ll look at two scenarios of opening an OST on a different computer –

On the second computer, you can configure the same account in Outlook to which that OST belongs to.

You don’t have access to the user’s credentials, OR you don’t have network connectivity in the second computer. In this case the

OST converter⁠

will help you.

⁠

Case 1: Open OST File on Another Computer Manually

In this case, you don’t need the OST file in order to get your email data.

On the second computer, simply login with your credentials in the Outlook client (and configure it with IMAP protocol), and it will fetch your email and other data from the exchange server. After this, a new OST file will be generated and saved in the designated folder of your new machine.

Essentially, this was an automatic process where after you logged in, your OST file was copied and opened in the different computer. You can now view all your emails, send/receive new emails and so on.

One thing to consider – Before configuring Outlook on your new device, it’s a good idea to connect the first computer to the Internet so that whatever changes were made to your local OST file can be synchronized with your email data currently hosted on the server.

It is the quickest way to open OST file on another computer without any limitation.

Case 2: Open OST on Another Computer After Exporting in PST Format

In this case, using the OST directly in Outlook can be tricky. The solution is to convert the OST to PST format and then use the converted PST on any computer installed Outlook.

Let’s go step-by-step to understand why we can’t open OST file in another computer’s Outlook, and possible solutions you can work with.

What is an OST file?

Offline Storage Table (OST) is one of the two data storage files in Outlook (the other one being PST, aka Personal Storage Table). OST is a slave copy of the Outlook data (emails, calendars, contacts, task, etc.) which is present on your Email (by default, Exchange) Server WHEN you have configured your account to use IMAP protocol. This copy is stored at C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Outlook Files, in Outlook 2010/2013.

The advantages of generating this OST file –

You can view your email data even when you’re not connected to the Internet or when the email server is down.

Not just viewing, you can also edit your data, for example, you can delete emails, create emails, save emails as draft, add items to your calendar, etc.

The limitation of an OST file is that OST files cannot be opened directly in Outlook unless you have the same account that created it configured in Outlook client. This is because of an authentication process that happens when you use the OST for the first time. The server authenticates with your local device, and if that’s successful, it allows you to view the OST.

Such stand-alone OST files are termed as “Orphaned OSTs”.

How to Read Orphaned PST Files? - Explained Here

There are two options –

Use a

Free OST Viewer Tool⁠

Convert your OST to PST, and import this PST into Outlook – This is the recommended option.

Steps to Convert OST to PST Format

To do so, we have the following available methods –

Use Microsoft Outlook’s in-built Import & Export Utility –

NOTE: This method can only work if you have access to the account (to which that OST belongs to) in Outlook on the first computer.

If you meet the above-mentioned pre-requisite, you can facilitate the conversion process by going through the following steps –

Open Outlook, going to File, choose Open & Export, and click on Import/Export.

An “Import and Export Wizard” will pop-up.

Select “Export to a file”, and click on “Next”.

Now we will be asked which file format should we convert to. Choose “Outlook Data File (.pst)” and click “Next”.

Select the email account you wish to export as PST. Browse to the location where you wish to save it.

Now you can transfer this PST to open it in Outlook in the second computer.

2. Use a 3rd-party Tool and Convert OST to PST format

The below listed steps are verified and recommend to perform. It will make you able to open OST file on another computer even without same Profile and server connectivity.

Plenty of options (both free and paid) to choose from.

⁠

SysTools OST to PST Converter⁠

is free tool (with a paid version also available) that can convert large mailboxes quickly and efficiently.

It can also convert OST to other formats such as MBOX, NSF, PDF, DOCX, etc.

You can use it in the following manner –

Download SysTools OST converter and install, and open the tool.

Click on “Add File” to import the OST.

You can also preview the content of the OST file.

Click on “Export”. The export facility will open.

Select the data you wish to convert.

Choose the file type you wish to convert it to.

Select the destination folder. Click on “Export”.

Now, in order to read this PST, you can use –

Microsoft Outlook –

Open Outlook.

Go to “File”, then “Open & Export”, and choose “Open Outlook Data File”.

Browse to the location where you have the PST file, and click on “Open”.

The mail data will now be available in the folder pane.

2. 3rd-party free software, such as

SysTools Outlook PST Viewer⁠

Conclusion

You can now open an OST file on another computer.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.