Remerge split pst files & transfer to new email address in Outlook

My old laptop broke down and I've replaced it with new one with Win10 and Office 2007 on it.

I have a back-up (on an external drive) from my old laptop that has Outlook files on it that go way back to Office 2000 (time flies...!) and those emails are related to an email address that I do not have any longer. I haven't used Outlook for a couple of years: I lived abroad and gmail was much more practical with having all my stuff online instead of changing to local email addresses in each country. I've never bothered to reinstall those old Outlook back-up files but would like to consult some old correspondence now.

Problem: the external drive split the large pst and bak files into portions. For instance I now have 1 RAR file that contains 3 pst files (195.975KB, 8.263KB and 176KB) all bearing the same name "outlook.pst". In another RAR file I have another file called outlook.pst (71.534KB). The same thing happened for the bak files: they got split up into various RAR files and those RAR files contain files that bear the same name.

What I would like to do is to have those 4 pst files merged to have 1 outlook.pst file again but when I extract with WinRAR it looks like the 195.975KB gets overwritten with the 8.263KB which then gets overwritten with the 176KB. The same thing happens when trying to add the 4th file from the 2nd RAR file to the first RAR file. The problem is that they all have to same name. How can I get 1 outlook.pst file again?

My second question is related to Outlook itself. When I open the program it asks me to connect it to an email address. I backed out for now because I do not know what to do. I can connect it to a current email address, but if I do this will I still be able to see all the old correspondence which is related to an email address that doesn't exist any longer? I do not use Outlook for current emails but I wouldn't want to lose that old correspondence.

Thank you for your help!

Judith

How much easier my life would be if there weren't new versions for everything all the time... I would actually get some work done !

Hi Judith, it's a long time since I had Office 2007, so following is general procedure. You'll need to figure out the exact details of how to do it in 2007.

The problem is that they all have to same name

Extract one of the files, and rename it. Repeat 3 more times, so you end up with 4 files with unique names—can be as simple as Outlook1.pst, Outlook2.pst etc, but better if you can be more descriptive, eg Holland 2003-2007.pst, France 2015-2019.pst, etc.

How can I get 1 outlook.pst file again?

Make copies of the 4 files you just made, so you don't have to worry about messing up.
Assign one of the 4 as your 'live' PST file, ie the one which Outlook looks for to use.
"Import" each of the other 3 PST files into it, one at a time. Will be under some menu item like File > Import/Export.

I can connect it to a current email address, but if I do this will I still be able to see all the old correspondence which is related to an email address that doesn't exist any longer?

Yes, you will still be able to see everything in the PST file. Go ahead and connect to an email address.
Tip: configure your new account to leave mail on the server, if you still want it all available in Gmail.
You may also want to disable automatic Send/Receive if you don't want Outlook handling your current mail.

I haven't used Outlook for a couple of years: I lived abroad and gmail was much more practical with having all my stuff online instead of changing to local email addresses in each country.

You could have used Outlook if you wanted. I have a Gmail address, an Outlook.com address, my own website address, plus a few forwarders, all coming into Outlook—it would be way too slow for me to have to visit various sites & their various loading times and various interfaces, and all with less functionality than Outlook has.

FYI you don't have to go thru the PST merge above. Outlook can read different PSTs, just tell it which one to look at. That might be simpler, if you only need occasional access to your old stuff. I have a bunch of old PSTs as archives, available if I ever need them.

Hi Lugh,

Thank you for your detailed answer and sorry to be so slow in replying. I've been hiking in the mountains for a couple of days > a break from computers, and even phones!

I will give it a try to rename the files and then import each PST file separately into the active PST. I may have to do that with each former PST file : I used to archive by year (with a tree by contact/subject) and each year was a huge file and they now all got split up on the external drive, most likely in a non-logical way.

Thanks also for the tip on the email addresses. Indeed having more email addresses to check is a pain. Having all online is handy but Gmail deletes the oldest correspondence if you use too much storing space. So it may be a good thing to haul some in and archive it.

I'll give it a go! Thanks a lot!

Judith