Keeping Outlook Classic (desktop) PST in Google Drive folder?

G

Geldner

Member
Outlook version
Outlook 2019 64-bit
Email Account
POP3
Operating system::    Windows 11
Outlook version:     Outlook Classic
Email type or host:    POP and IMAP
I have full Office Professional desktop installations on each of my laptops and my desktop. When I travel, I'd like to be able to open the primary PST file on the laptop. Usually I copy the PST to the laptop and use it from there. But I'm wondering if I can simply migrate the main PST to my Google Drive folder so it's accessible to the laptop and the desktop so each computer keeps it updated. Yes, I know you can't have both Outlooks (laptop & desktop) open at the same time. But are there any drawbacks to putting the PST file in the G Drive folder and simply working from that all the time? Does it make any difference that I have Office Pro 2024 on the laptop and Office Pro 2021 on my desktop?

Thanks!
 
Versions won't matter - especially from 2016 on, but the pst will work in 2003 and newer.

I haven't tested it with google drive, but a lot of people sync psts using OneDrive and rarely have issues. The PST may be more prone to corruption, but it's not common. It is good to make regular backups just in case you are the unlucky one. :)

You need to close Outlook and wait for the PST to fully sync up to the drive folder - otherwise the PST on the computers can be out of sync and you could lose mail as the other computer's version will overwrite the PST and when it syncs back to the main computer, you'll lose what did not sync up.
 
Thanks Diane. I did a deeper AI search and found a couple of examples of people doing exactly this. I set it up late last night. It took a couple of false starts getting my desktop to recognize the new PST location but now I think I know the drill. I was careful to make backups of everything before doing it. Next step is to install MyPhoneExplorer on the laptop so it all syncs back to my Android phone. I don't know why syncing is so opaque but that's another topic. 🥴

And I found a gotcha. Moving the PST breaks all the rules since Outlook can't find the folders the rules point to. I just spent 15 minutes going through each one to update it to the correct folder. 🙄
Diane Poremsky said:
Versions won't matter - especially from 2016 on, but the pst will work in 2003 and newer.

I haven't tested it with google drive, but a lot of people sync psts using OneDrive and rarely have issues. The PST may be more prone to corruption, but it's not common. It is good to make regular backups just in case you are the unlucky one. :)

You need to close Outlook and wait for the PST to fully sync up to the drive folder - otherwise the PST on the computers can be out of sync and you could lose mail as the other computer's version will overwrite the PST and when it syncs back to the main computer, you'll lose what did not sync up.
Click to expand...
 
Geldner said:
And I found a gotcha. Moving the PST breaks all the rules since Outlook can't find the folders the rules point to. I just spent 15 minutes going through each one to update it to the correct folder. 🙄
Click to expand...
Oh, yes, I forgot about that. If you are using the same rules on both computers, you need copies and use 'this computer only' in each copy. Or, if you are only using Outlook on the laptop sporadically, fix all the rules on the desktop to have 'this computer only' enabled and let it handle the filtering.

Oh, and one more thing - if you are leaving mail on the server, you may have duplicates when the other computer downloads mail. As long as the mailbox manager file that keeps track of the last downloaded message is not corrupted, you shouldn't have a problem. And if you are good about marking mail read, you can delete unread mail if it happens. (I'm not good as marking mail read. :( )

If you need to use Scanpst, it will likely remove or corrupt the mailbox manager file - if you need to use it, you can set up a rule to move or delete mail older than yesterday's date - set it as the first rule. If you keep mail on the server for longer than 14 days, I'd move to a folder as you can open the PST in a new profile (where it is not the default PST for the account) and delete the folder.
 
Diane Poremsky said:
Oh, yes, I forgot about that. If you are using the same rules on both computers, you need copies and use 'this computer only' in each copy. Or, if you are only using Outlook on the laptop sporadically, fix all the rules on the desktop to have 'this computer only' enabled and let it handle the filtering.
Click to expand...
My strategy is that I won't use the laptop when the desktop is up. On travel, all mailboxes are IMAP. The desktop is POP3 except for Gmail which is always IMAP. I'll edit the rules to "this computer only".
 
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