How to back up Outlook items by creating pst files

Outlook is an personal independent messenger, where you can view and send mails. The best option here is that it can still works offline. That means, unlike other email hosting sites (where you can view the mails only through internet access), you can view the synched mails when your internet is offline.

What is a pst file in outlook? - Microsoft's Outlook also provides a good feature of backing up the mails through which you can backup the old data of mails or calendar events you have sent or received. It can be done by creating a Personal Storage Table, which is nothing but another folder where the back up files are to be resided. And it is pouplarly known as .pst file.

The following is the procedure for the same.

For Outlook 2010

• Open the outlook and click on New Items button. 
• From the list it shows, click on More Items and then Select Outlook Data file.. option.



• Now it will pop up the Browse file option to select the back up file location and enter the name of the Backup file.

• Here you can choose the compatability of the pst file through Save as type dropdown, where Outlook 97-2002 Data file option is for outlook versions between 1997 to 2002. The other option is for the higher versions.
• Click on Ok. And it will open up a window prompting for password option, if you want to set the password for the backup file. It is not mandate to give the password, you can click on Ok.
• It will add the backup file location to add the left panel of the outlook where you can directly drag and drop the emails to this folder.

Note: For outlook versions 2003 and 2007, the backup option can be availed by clicking on File menu and selecting the New button followed by the Outlook Data File as marked in the below figure.