Locating the Outlook Data Files. You can check the location of your Outlook Data Files in Outlook. Select File Account Settings Account Settings. Select the Data Files tab. All Outlook Data Files (.pst) and Offline Data Files (.ost) are listed along with the name of the account the files are associated with. Part 2 Reducing the size of.ost file Once you open the MS Outlook, click on the ‘Tools’ menu and then click on. To view the total size of your mailbox and the individual folders within it. To delete files within a folder, open the folder by double clicking on it and the select.
I’m running out of disk space on my main drive and noticed that my ost-file was really big. I know how to move pst-files, but that method does not seem to apply to ost-files.
How can I move my ost-file to another location?
Moving an ost-file to another location is indeed a bit more trickier than moving a pst-file.
While it is recommended to leave the ost-file in its default location, there are still valid reasons for moving it to another location like for instance when using a smaller Solid-state Drive (SSD) as your main disk.
Moving the ost-file to another location in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 takes a bit of clicking but is still an easy process with the following step-by-step instructions.
C:Users%username%AppDataLocalMicrosoftOutlook
Outlook will now use the ost-file from the new location and you can safely delete the ost-file from your main disk.
It takes some clicking to make the ost-file location field editable.
Moving the ost-file in Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 is no longer possible via the interface in Outlook itself. Instead, the quickest way to go would be to create Symbolic Links instead.
With a Symbolic Link, you’d be creating a “pseudo file” which is only a pointer to the actual file. This differs from a shortcut as a shortcut is actually an lnk-file whereas a Symbolic Link will retain the original file name.
This may sound all very complex, but the actual process is quite easy and very effective. You’ll find step-by-step instructions in the guide: Moving the ost-file of an Exchange, Outlook.com or IMAP account.
The guide mentioned above, also contains 2 other methods to moving the ost-file’s location which doesn’t involve creating Symbolic Links but do require you to recreate the account.
Note: Don’t place the ost-file on a network share. This is unsupported and it would defeat the purpose of enabling Cached Exchange Mode. The ost-file should reside on an internal drive.