February 15, 2022 / Lily Collins

How to Delete Outlook .Pst File

You might be a frequent user of Outlook for sending and receiving email messages, setting up calendar events, and creating tasks and other items, but have you wonder how and where all these items you create or setup are stored in your Outlook program?

Well, while all the information that you create or set up in your Outlook program mainly gets stored on the server, a copy of this data gets also stored locally on your computer in an Offline Outlook Data file (.ost). In case you are using POP or IMAP account, the Outlook items can also be stored in an Outlook Data File (.pst). And, if you ever wish to open or close or delete an Outlook Data File (.pst), you can do so easily by following the step-by-step instructions provided below.

Steps to Delete Outlook .pst File

NOTE: If your organization has a policy of archiving email messages automatically, you older emails, calendar events and tasks might get stored in the archive Outlook Data File (.pst). So, even if you delete the offline Outlook Data File (.ost) for all your day-to-day information, the archive.pst file could still be containing the older information.

For Newer Versions

1.) To remove the Outlook Data file from the Folder pane, you can do so by simply closing the file. However, this will not remove the file from your computer.

2.) For this, simply go to the Folder pane, right-click on the name of the Outlook Data File and select Close “Outlook Data File”.

For Office 2010

1.) If you do not want the quick access to an Outlook Data File (.pst), you can simply close the file. When you close a file, it will no longer appear in the Navigation pane, however, it will not get deleted from your computer.

2.) Simply right-click on the name of the Outlook Data File (.pst) which you wish to delete from the Navigation pane. Then, click on the Close name option.

NOTE: If you don’t see the Close command, you are possibly trying to delete the default Outlook Data File (.pst) which is used for saving your new emails. And as new emails will have no location to get stored, the Close command option will not be given for it.

For Office 2007

You would always want to get rid of the clutter in the Navigation pane even when you prefer to store all your messages. And as you may not need to have an instant access to an archive .pst file, you can delete an Outlook Data File from your Navigation pane without any need to delete the file from your computer.

1.) For this, you will need to right-click on the Personal Folders file which you wish to remove from the Navigation pane.

2.) After right-clicking on the file, simply click on the Close Personal Folders option in the menu list.

NOTE: If you think you that this action may delete a file and make you lose your data, well, closing a .pst file will not make you delete the file or any items which it contains. It’s just that you will not see the file in the Navigation pane anymore. If you ever wish to add any .pst file back to your Navigation pane, you can follow these steps.

• Go to the File menu and select Open
• Next, click on the Outlook Data File.
• Then, click on the .pst file which you wish to open.
• After that, simply click on the OK button and you are done.

So, this is how you can delete Outlook .pst file in your Outlook program. You can select the instructions as per the version of Outlook you are using.