Emails: Removing Outlook - what happens to emails?

sindersoot

Haven't a clue about the technical stuff involved with pcs so looking for very simple easy to understand answer:)

Want to delete/remove the software and stop using Office Outlook from our pc. When the software is deleted/removed will all the copies of the emails it contains also be deleted from the individual server, hotmail, googlemail a/c's?

How do we stop the emails from other a/c's going via Office Outlook, or is it a case of once Office Outlook software is deleted from pc that will be okay as emails will continue to go into their relevant a/c's?

KathysBoy

Outlook downloads the emails from each account you have e.g googlemail, hotmail etc, and then deletes them from the email server (assuming its set up is the standard). Once you delete Outlook the emails will continue to be received in your email account, and you can either read them online, or use another pop mail reader to download them.

As far as the emails you have currently downloaded are concerned, these will probably be deleted when you uninstall the program (I say probably because this is normal uninstall procedure assuming you use the uninstall functionality, although I haven't uinstalled Outlook as I like it). The emails are actually stored in a seperate file, so you could take a copy of this if you wanted to save them. You could probably import them into another reader.

fwor

This may depend on what version of Outlook you are using, and also on how the accounts were set up originally.

From my recollection of Office 2003, the default setting is for emails to be downloaded to your local mailbag on the PC, and for no copy to be left on the server. If that's how yours was set up then incoming emails will sit on your email provider's server until either you configure another email client to go and get them, or you use your provider's webmail client to view and deal with them directly.

IIRC, deleting Outlook does not delete the emails that are already stored in your local mailbag - these will remain in a local file called outlook.pst. I believe some other email clients can import emails from there, so you can retain any important emails that you need to keep.

sindersoot

Thanks for both of your answers, some bits we can understand but there are a couple of questions we would appreciate help with.

There is a file some where called "pst", not sure where it is, would need to look for it, any ideas where it will be?

If it is Outlook do we need to move it and how would we do that?

Does the pst file need to be copied to a disc or is held independently from Office Outlook?

Sorry for all the questions but we don't want to lose our emails.

TimothyEBaldwin

Ensure the replacement is working, and you can access your emails without using Outlook before removing Outlook. Emails will not be deleted from any email server by unistalling Outlook, nor will anything need to be configured to stop sending emails to Outlook.

sindersoot

TimothyEBaldwin wrote: »

Ensure the replacement is working, and you can access your emails without using Outlook before removing Outlook. Emails will not be deleted from any email server by unistalling Outlook, nor will anything need to be configured to stop sending emails to Outlook.

Thanks, that is really good to know.

acc

sindersoot wrote: »

There is a file some where called "pst", not sure where it is, would need to look for it, any ideas where it will be?
Does the pst file need to be copied to a disc or is held independently from Office Outlook?

For Windows XP the outlook.pst file is usually in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

If necessary you can search the C: drive for *.pst, and the file should contain all your saved emails.

The file is held independently of Outlook, but you need Outlook to read the file, and forward each email to your new email account. Once all the emails have been received safely in the new account, you can dispense with the pst file and Outlook.

sindersoot

Thanks acc, that is also good to know that the pst file will be safe and we can open it if we install a new Office suite. The pst file is showing in the C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

Have now checked all other email accounts and all appear to be working okay which is a bonus:)