How to Search Emails in PST Files without Outlook?
Struggling to find an important email buried inside your old, bulky PST file? You’re not alone. PST files generally hold years of email communication, increasing their size and making it difficult to manually search for specific emails. Whether you’re setup with Outlook or not, there are practical ways to search and filter emails quickly. In this article, we’ll show you multiple ways to effortlessly search emails in PST files without spending hours scrolling.
Real-World Scenarios to Search Emails in PST File
- Working in a law firm or corporate compliance department requires locating specific emails exchanged with a client many years ago.
- Forensic investigator might need to search in employee’s PST file to detect potential data leaks.
- During an internal audit, a finance team might need to pull all the emails related to specific project from archived PST file.
- If you lose access to paid software, but the access key received via email years ago, instead of browsing through all the emails, searching for “license key” can quick recover the needed email as well as license key.
- If you’re preparing for travel and need to locate old flight tickets or hotel booking emails that were archived into a PST file. Using keywords like “booking,” “confirmation,” can quickly bring you needed emails.
How to Search Mail in PST File?
There are basically two practical ways to search specific phrase in PST: Manual and professional. While the manual method involves using Outlook and professional method is completely standalone and makes the process easier and effortless.
We’ll show you each method one by one. Carefully analyze them and find out which one works well for you.
Manual Method to Search Emails in PST Files
If you have Outlook configured on device, the easiest way to search within PST file is to import and open it directly.
Step 1. Open Microsoft Outlook on your Windows PC.
Step 2. Click File and go to Open & Export and Open Outlook Data File.
Step 3. Browse, select and import PST files into Outlook.
Step 4. Once imported, navigate to the top-right search bar and type the keyword you want to find.
Step 5. Use Search Tools (in the ribbon) to filter the results from date range, folder etc.
Limitation of the Method
- You must configure with the Outlook account.
- The process may slow down with the large PST files.
- There are no advanced filters to search from specific size or other criteria.
If you’re not set up with Outlook, nor do you want to be, and are looking for a more professional and simpler method to search emails in PST files, you’ll find it below.
Easiest Method to Search Emails in Large PST Files
PST File Viewer is the smartest and time-efficient method to search in PST files without Outlook. It offers quick and advanced search options to find emails, contacts, attachments and calendar items from specific criteria. This software is completely free to use and doesn’t require any premium purchase just to search for emails in PST files.
This software is user friendly and takes just a few simple steps to search email in Outlook PST file. You will find all the software steps below.
Steps to Search in PST Files without Outlook
- Download the software on your computer. Then complete its installation and start it.
- Click the Open menu and go to Email Data Files and Outlook PST/OST Files.
- Browse your Outlook PST files and upload them into the software.
- The files will be visible into the left panel of the software.
- Now, go to the search bar in the top right corner and enter the keyword that you want to find.
- Next, select the “Emails” in the advanced search box.
- Now, apply date range, time frame, file name, file size etc for more specified search.
That’s how to effortlessly search emails in PST files with the help of the professional PCDOTS software. If you want to learn a bit more about the tool, keep on reading.
- Works completely standalone and does not require configuration of PST with Outlook.
- In addition to emails, it can also search within tasks, calendar, journals, notes etc.
- Completely free and does not ask for premium purchase.
- Search emails in PST from specific time, date range and headers like To, Cc, Bcc, From etc.
- Automatically detects ANSI and Unicode PST files.
- Compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and below editions.
In Conclusion
Searching for specific emails in PST file can be hectic and time consuming process, but with the understanding of the right method, you can make it easy and effective. In the text above, we have offered you two practical methods to search mail in PST file. You may use the Outlook or the professional PCDOTS software to effortlessly search and locate emails in large PST files. However, while the Outlook lacks advanced search option, the professional software is completely free and offers multiple filters for effective search.
