Cleaning up after a departed employee: IT handed me their PST archive and an OST file from the old laptop. I need just the contacts out of both for the CRM handover.
The PST opens in my Outlook but the OST refuses. What is the procedure for each?
Extract Outlook contacts from PST and OST files
Solved Email & Outlook
AJ
Andrew Jackson September 24, 2020
2 replies
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Two different jobs. The PST is straightforward. The OST needs a conversion step first and that difference is by design.
PST route: attach it via File, Open and Export, Open Outlook Data File. Its folder tree appears in the pane. Now run the export wizard: File, Open and Export, Import/Export, Export to a file, Comma Separated Values. In the folder picker select the Contacts folder inside the attached PST rather than your own. Save the CSV and the CRM imports it directly.
OST route: an OST only opens inside the exact profile that created it, which died with the old laptop. Outlook rejects it everywhere else no matter what you try. Convert it to PST first with an OST converter, SysTools OST Converter reads the file standalone, then run the same attach and export steps on the resulting PST.
Compare the two contact sets before the handover. The OST often holds contacts the PST archive missed, anything added after the last archive run, so the union of both CSVs deduplicated in Excel is usually the honest final list.
PST gave 340 contacts, converted OST gave 367 including 30 recent ones the archive never caught. Merged and deduplicated, CRM handover done.