Legal hold situation: an ex employee's OST from their laptop needs producing as reviewable documents, and the lawyers want PDF, one file per email, attachments accounted for.
The mailbox behind it no longer exists. What is the defensible way from OST to a folder of PDFs?
With the mailbox gone the OST is orphaned, so everything runs through direct file reading. For legal production you want the shortest chain with the least transformation.
The direct route is an OST to PDF conversion in one tool: SysTools OST Converter includes PDF output, reading the OST standalone and writing one PDF per message with the header block, From, Sent, To, Subject, printed at the top of each, which is the part reviewing lawyers actually rely on. Attachment handling is selectable, embedded into the PDF or extracted alongside with a reference list, ask the lawyers which their review platform prefers before running the batch.
Set the file naming to include date and subject so the production sorts chronologically, and enable the date range filter if the hold covers a specific period only, producing beyond scope creates its own problems.
For defensibility, document the chain. Hash the original OST before you start, certutil -hashfile with SHA256 does it natively on Windows. Keep the tool name and version with the output and convert from a copy while the original stays untouched in evidence storage. The two step alternative, OST to PST then Outlook printing to PDF, adds a transformation layer and manual steps per message, which is exactly what you do not want to explain in an affidavit.
Converted 18,000 messages to PDFs with date subject naming, attachments extracted alongside per the platform's preference. Hash recorded before touching anything. Counsel satisfied.