How to Create an ANSI PST File in Outlook 2016, 2013 & 2010
Communication is the most indispensable part of a business organization and the emailing forms the crux of communication in the work organization. MS Outlook is the most preferred and favorable selection of email client for communication purposes among the professionals and personal users. Other than being just an email system, MS Outlook has many other features like the contact lists, calendar, notes etc., which makes it an organizer and hence it is also called as Personal-Information-Manager (PIM). Outlook has undergone several changes with every version and this has resulted in one of the changes, being the ANSI PST to Unicode PST generation. The latest Outlook versions create Unicode PST files by default. This blog deals with How to create an ANSI PST file in Outlook 2016, 2013 and 2010.
The Difference between ANSI PST and Unicode PST File in Outlook
- In Outlook 2002 versions and earlier, the PST files are in the American-National-Standards-Institute (ANSI) format. In the later versions of Outlook from the Outlook 2003 version, the .PST files are in the Unicode format by default.
- In the ANSI format, the .PST files had a limit that is not more than 2GB size. In the Unicode .PST file, the size was first increased to 20GB and later was made extendable in the subsequent versions.
- Even in the Outlook 2003 version, the .PST files for IMAP or HTTP accounts are limited to 2GB. In Outlook 2007 version, the IMAP4 and HTTP accounts use Unicode format for the PST files and are not limited to 2GB.
The Origin of Unicode PST
The ANSI PST file can be created in the latest versions of Outlook, which readily support and allow the creation of Unicode PST file by default. Previous versions of Outlook made ANSI-formatted personal-folders PST files, but these files could save only upto 1.5GB of data only. This amount of space could only be helpful only to the home-based users and not usually to professionals. The running of Outlook would be affected and slowed down when the storage limit would approach 1.5GB. So Outlook’s later versions increased this data saving of up to 20GB of data and then to 50GB and finally to an extendable space that brought in a lot of difference to the users who worked on MS Outlook.
Manual Method to Create an ANSI PST File in Outlook 2016, 2013 and 2010 Versions
Outlook 2003 and 2007 versions had the prompt to choose Outlook PST file if required to make one. But in the later versions this option was not given to the users. Nevertheless, the user can create an ANSI formatted PST even in the latest MS Outlook editions. The making of the Outlook PST file is dealt with here below procedure-by-procedure:
Note: The procedure mentioned here is for the Outlook 2013 versions and is the same for 2016 and 2010 version too.
Step 1:
- Open MS Outlook and click the New Items option.
- In the New Items option, click More Items and select Outlook Data File from the list.
Step 2:
- Open Save as Type from the drop down and select the Outlook 97-2002 Data File (*.pst) from the list.
- Type in a file name and click on OK
- This creates the ANSI PST file in the latest version of Outlook.
Conclusion
The manual method is easy in the creation of the PST format in the 2010, 2013 and 2016 versions of Outlook. As seen from the above steps, the manual method is easy to create an ANSI PST file in Outlook 2016, 2013 and 2010. Also, any novice can easily go through and understand the steps to create the Outlook PST file. Though Outlook has removed the prompt option in the latest versions, it can be easily overcome by the Save as Type option. So this blog deals with the origin of the Unicode PST and the creation of the ANSI PST file in Outlook. Sometimes though, the manual ways are not adept enough to work in cases where complexity is evident and user cannot pick up the steps with somewhat lesser understanding of technical processes.