How to import the ost file to outlook 2013

Which mail account type are you using? Exchange, EAS/Hotmail, IMAP, other...?

An ost-file is only a local cache of the mail that is on the server. If you moved the mail from a pst-file to a mail account and deleted this mail account before it synched everything to the server, then that data is gone.

AFAIK, none of the commercial recovery tools are compatible yet with Outlook 2013 ost-files.

Still, there is no need for such a tool if you copied rather than moved the contents from the pst-file or have a backup of that pst-file.

If not, you could try recovering the data from the pst-file in the following way:
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/restoredeleteditemsfromanoutlookpst.htm

I am using IMAP. The outlook 2013 is very different from earlier version outlook. Earlier version outlook generate pst file,while outlook 2013 generate ost file. However, the ost file can not be imported into the outlook.

After I use 2013, the file pst files changed to ost.

do you have any idea how to import it into outlook

I spend almost one week and tried to figure out how to solve this problem.

all my email is gone, so frustrated.

Thanks a lot.

Hi, Even I am struggling with this same issue. Any luck with importing the OST file into outlook?

I use Outlook 2013 in the following scenario

• My email domain is hosted at GoDaddy
• We do not use Exchange services, so I pick up email on POP with leave a copy on server enabled

Now I'll be the first to admit this is not ideal, but we're in a startup organisation, and we're keeping our overheads low :)

Now...this means that my work email id connects using Outlook 2013, and creates and .ost file for email storage on the local device.

What happened for me was my PC died and I had to reinstall Windows and apps from scratch.  Fortunately I had a backup of My Documents, and Office 2013 saves ost files in that same folder (sub folder is Outlook files).

So here's what I did:

1. On my newly installed Outlook instance I recreated my email account with POP3/SMTP settings as they should be.
2. This then downloaded everything on the server and created a 87 mb .ost file (*** Email address is removed for privacy *** with a .ost extension)
3. Now at this point I had my inbox, but no old calendar entries or contacts or notes or sent items. hm.
4. I then copied my original .ost file (which had the same *** Email address is removed for privacy *** name) into my new Documents > Outlook Files folder)
5. Opened outlook up again, and voila, all my email/sent items and everything else magically reappeared.

Now, I didn't have an exchange account so that's why this worked. That being said if you have an exchange server then the .ost is simply a replica of your server mailbox and this whole exercise is moot.

With regards to IMAP, you shouldn't have to go through this at all...since IMAP folders are fully synchronized with the server folders, but you're welcome to try.

Hope this helps.

On a side note: In all of this I realized another downside of using the PoP3 method...which is that on my phone/tablet device, any mails I send do not synchronize with my mailbox. Thankfully, that's not a huge issue for me because I use those sparingly for mail sends.

I have the same problem and bought a third party package for $70 which did nothing. So did you copy the old .ost file to the location of the new one?  I've spent hours with this issue. I got all of my contacts and appointments from iCloud. I just need the .ost file. I use Carbonite and they told me they don't backup .ost files. Any help would be great. 

You cannot open/import an orphaned .ost file but not clear as to why you think you need it. When you configure your account - the .ost file is recreated and sync'd with the server.

The important caveat to know for OL'2013/'2016 users is that contacts/calendar items <may> be contained in the .ost file depending on how everything was setup. Anything contained in folders with the description "This Computer Only" will be lost if a backup wasn't made of those folders.

I'm having a very similar problem.  I installed windows 10 in a separate partition, and as part of that process the bootloader for my existing 8.1 install got corrupted and I can no longer log into the 8.1 install, so I can't do a backup of the file with that installation.  I do have access to the full file structure of that install however, so i can access the old/good .ost file from the former install.

I use IMAP for my email, and while this does leave all the email on the server, it does NOT sync contacts, tasks, calendar, or anything else as far as I can tell (how incredibly annoying!).  So, I'm trying to get my old .ost file to load into the new Windows 10 installation.  Both have Office 2013 installed.

I created a new mail account in Windows 10 with the exact same information as the file in the Windows 8 install.  it created an ost account in the windwos 10 directory with the same name as the one in Windows 8.  I then copied the windows 8 ost file over the one in the windows 10 directory, then tried opening Outlook and it complained that the ost file was created for a different mailbox, and refused to open Outlook.

What can I do to get my old ost file, or at least my contacts into the new Windows 10 Outlook install?