Here’s the Recommended Way to Import OST file into Office 365 – Quick and Safe!
OST file is short for “offline storage table,” a modified version of PST, which is short for “Personal Storage Table.” Both are native data files used by Outlook in Windows, developed by Microsoft.
To put it in a simpler way, OST acts as a cached and synchronized copy of your mail folders on servers accessible even offline, enabling the software to sync the changes once it is reconnected to the servers. This gives Outlook a much friendly feature but also adds to the problem if the file is any way becomes disconnected with the original email account and becomes inaccessible.
Import OST file into Office 365
Despite the similarities and almost being the same file-structure, OST and PST work differently and has different uses. The difference is enough to make it impossible to import OST file into Office 365. There is no way to import it ‘directly’ into Windows Outlook, let alone in other clients that do not support the ‘personal storage’ format by Microsoft.
But if that were the end of story, there would be no need for this article and you wouldn’t be here, searching for a quick way to import OST file into Office 365, or at least the data that is stored in your OST file.
The Challenges
OST file may be impossible to open manually in any emailing software/clients, but there is a way to access and migrate the data that is inside them through converting the format of the file.
Microsoft OST to PST conversion tools are available on the web that you can download. They work simply, in theory, by converting all emails and other items in OST to PST. Later, you can import PST to Outlook or Office 365. PST format is also compatible with Mac versions of Outlook.
But most of these OST to PST converters are rudimentary and prove inefficient in cases even slightly more complicated than converting a few folders. With an OST file larger than a Gigabyte and containing more intricate information within (such as Unicode characters in email folders), a converter designed without proper algorithms will fall short significantly of your expectations.
Loss of time and energy alone are crucial drawbacks with such rudimentary OST file converters. You likely cannot afford endless hours trying to import OST file into Office 365 and affect your work negatively. But the worst part is that productivity loss is not the only drawback of an ordinary tool for converting OST file.
It may surprise you but data loss with output and damaging even the original file are not too uncommon results when users employ a software tool that lacks the proper inner algorithms.
If you are new to this, you may assume that a tiny amount of information loss or data integrity error wouldn’t matter too much in your case. It’s a mistake many people make as it is easy to do so. But what many fails to consider is that it is impossible to check every email after conversion to look for such defects or missing elements in the database. A sloppy OST converter could have missed a graphical component of an email and you might never know until it is too late. That single graphic could potentially be anything, such as the only copy of your client’s details.
Solution to Import OST to Office 365
This is the reason why you would never find an IT advanced user with experience recommending an ordinary OST to PST converter to help you import OST file into Office 365. Only few apps designed to do this work efficiently and safely, due to their cleverly crafted algorithms for processing the information within the files. One such app is ‘OST Extractor Pro‘.
Works on Mac and Windows
This tool comes up most times in the list of software recommendations for dealing with the OST conversion needs, especially to import OST file into Office 365 (in both Mac OS and Windows platform). The finely-tuned and calibrated mechanics at its core process the information with precision that is unparalleled. It has optimized and targeted logical arguments to convert complex parts such as Unicode characters from email headers, large and non-textual attachments, cloud-based links, HTML formatted emails, folder hierarchy, and graphical/images inside emails.
Accurate & Fast Conversion
And remember about the concern of time and energy? Despite the thoroughness of the tool, it amazingly manages to also offer you a speedy conversion, finishing the job in no time and letting you go back to your work and life. The processing is without any gaps or freezes, shooting up the data-flow rate without any trade-offs. Where other traditional apps can take hours to work with a single GB OST file, “OST Extractor Pro” does it in under ten minutes. For some IT users with massive databases, such fast conversion rate might be the best feature, even though it can be easy to miss.
Free Trial Copy to Try!
Want to test it out? The demo version is available for free. The only difference between full and trial version is that the demo edition converts only ten emails per folder per OST file. It gives you a much better view on the tool’s actual mechanics, functionality, and interface, such that you are fully confident that it does what you expect it to do.
24×7 Experts Support
There is support available too, all around the clock. And while, everything about ‘OST Extractor Pro’ is designed in a way to finish the job without any hiccups or help outside of a tool, an expert’s hand in cases such as large corporations’ database management has value that cannot be easily estimated.
‘OST Extractor Pro’ is a cross-platform tool, available for Mac OS and Windows operating systems. It has minimal system requirements, is lightweight, and is bug-free. All the future updates are also always offered free of cost, enhancing its functionality and safety further and keeping up with the ever-changing world of email clients like Outlook.