PST stands for Personal Storage Table. Outlook File(PST) is a facility provided by Microsoft Co. for file storage in order to keep entire Outlook data. Outlook data comprises Emails, Attachments, Notes, Contacts, Calendars items, Task, etc. Binary data file algorithm is used for constructing PST File and it is divided into three different layers: Messaging Layer, NDB (Node Database) and LTP. If we are using Microsoft Outlook, then our emails, attachments, calendar, tasks, and other items associated with our account are saved on a mail server, on our computer, or both. Outlook item which is saved on our computer, is kept in an Outlook Data File (.pst and .ost).
Application Category
This format of data storage comes under Database File Category.
Applications Supported
MS Outlook
Brief Introduction of Proprietor
Microsoft is the creator of Outlook and all the file formats associated with it. Since 1997, the year when the term Outlook was coined in the Tech World, Microsoft has updated Outlook many number of times. With the introduction of every new version, Microsoft increased functionality of Outlook.
PST file's MIME Type
application/vnd.ms-outlook
File Signature
hexadecimal: 21 42 44 4e
Default file format for older versions of Outlook (97–2002) is capable of holding only up to 2GB of data. It does not support multiple
languages and structure is a 32–bit unsigned value.
However, Outlook still provides an option to
create ANSI PST file even in its latest versions of Outlook while creating an Outlook file.
UNICODE(2003-2016)
It is a multi-lingual data file format. It can handle data up to 50GB (massive amount of storage capacity) and it is 64-bit unsigned long. There is a limitation of UNICODE(2003-2016), that it can not run in older version of Outlook.
Outlook 2016: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\
Outlook 2013: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\
Outlook 2010: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\
Outlook 2007: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\
In Microsoft Outlook 2003
Outlook 2003: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\
Note:- There is a universal method. We can find out the location of PST extension file using "Account Setting" option in MS Outlook's Settings.