Commonly used in Microsoft Outlook for storing a range of data, including email messages, contacts, calendars, and other information, PST files—which stand for “Personal Storage Table” are This file offers a simple way for backing up and maintaining the data in your Outlook account. Attachments at times could include some really valuable items. Users need to download these attachments. We will walk over the manual and automated approaches for extracting attachments from a PST file in this post. Datavare PST Attachment Extractor will help you download all attachments at once if you so wish.
What Reasons To Extract Attachments From A PST File?
For several reasons—some of which are discussed below—the procedure of removing attachments from PST files can be advantageous.
- PST files especially if they contain many email attachments have the potential to expand dramatically with time. Good space management is crucial. Furthermore, the attachment extraction process allows the PST file to become free from clutter, therefore lowering the possibility of corruption and enhancing Outlook’s general speed.
- By extracting significant attachments from PST files, you can build standalone backups or archives. You can therefore backup and archive the attachments. This is the reason you will keep having access to the necessary attachments even in case the PST file becomes defective or unreachable completely.
- Keeping attachments somewhere outside from emails helps to organize them better and makes access easier. Finding specific files when needed is considerably simpler when attachments may be categorized based on sender content or content of the attachments.
- Attachments kept as separate files make it far simpler to look for certain content within them. This allows one to search among attachments for certain material. When you have to find material among presentations, papers, or spreadsheets, this is extremely useful.
- Without exchanging the whole PST file, extracted attachments are easily shared with colleagues or partners. This helps communication and teamwork to be more seamless. This helps to promote cooperation and only relevant information is shared with one another.
- Regarding privacy and security, PST files occasionally may have sensitive or secret attachments. By means of the extraction of these attachments, you will be able to independently secure them using the appropriate access limitations, therefore reducing the possibility of unauthorized access.
Method 1: How to Extract Attachments from PST File Manually?
Outlook’s built-in capability to extract attachments from emails housed in a PST file is one of its conveniences. Here’s how you do it:
- Launch Microsoft Outlook first.
- Find and choose the “File” tab located in the top left hand corner of the window.
- The final step is to choose “Open & Export,” then “Open Outlook Data File.”
- Once your navigation leads to the location of your PST file, click “Open”.
- Navigating to the folder list will allow you to view the contents of the PST file once it has been loaded into your Outlook profile.
- You will have to find the folder with the emails you wish to separate that have attachments.
- Right-click the attachments included in the email messages you have chosen.
- Depending on the Outlook version you are using, the context menu offers the “Save As” or “Save Attachments” choice.
- Click the “OK” button following your choice to then choose the computer folder on which the attachments will be housed.
Outlook will grab the attachments from the chosen email messages and save them to the location you specify on your computer.
Method 2: Instant Bulk Extracting Attachments from PST Files
If you have a lot of emails with attachments that need to be extracted, do the process hand-wise. This can cause time-consuming difficulties. Third-party programs like Datavare Outlook Attachment Extractor let you automatically extract attachments from PST files depending on specific criteria or in bulk in these kinds of circumstances. This tool also lets you import PST files into Office 365, Gmail, and a great range of other email accounts. This software will let you save just the attachments from a PST file that are absolutely required. Use its free version and extract attachments by just a few clicks.
Final Thoughts
One of the most important abilities that increases your Outlook data management efficiency is bulk extracting attachments from PST files. To avoid any possible data loss, you must always make sure your original PST file is always backup available. This is true whether your preferred method of more advanced extraction is a third-party program or the built-in Outlook approach.
