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Good day, Is there any way to open a pst file located on my exchange server, from an outlook client (or OWA), without importing this pst file to the client's active mailbox?

P.S: the server is in a remote location, and the pst file is aroung 50 GB so I am trying to avoid copying the file to the local network, and open it from MS Outlook

Hani El Mouallem
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Opening PST from remote location is really not recommended. It would cause serious performance issues.

As well as shared mailbox, you can also consider to enable archive mailbox for the mailbox of the user who will need to access this PST file. Then import the PST file to the archive mailbox.

Here is a Microsoft KB about accessing PST files from remote location, for your reference: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/297019/limits-to-using-personal-folders-.pst-files-over-lan-and-wan-links

Sue.J
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You cannot open PST files from OWA. Therefore Outlook is your only option. A copy of Outlook installed local to the location of the PST file will open it fine - just start Outlook and choose Open, Outlook Data File.

Sembee
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  • It is not what i am looking for, What I want is to access the pst from a remote PC, and avoid copying the pst file to the local network of the PC that wants to access this file. – Hani El Mouallem Jun 15 '17 at 11:43
  • Where did I say you were copying the file anywhere? I didn't. I said a copy of Outlook close to the location of the PST. How you get to that copy of Outlook is a different matter. – Sembee Jun 16 '17 at 07:48
  • I did not say that you mentioned copying the PST file, You want me to use outlook client and open the PST file using it, and this is what i said i didn't want to. I wanted to access the PST file from any remote outlook client, without having to copy the PST file away from the server. – Hani El Mouallem Jun 19 '17 at 08:56
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From Outlook, there's no direct solution, if the PST file resides at the Exchange server. You'll need to have the PST file on the local side in order to open it and possibly import it to the mailbox. From OWA, there's even less options: PST files are a feature of Outlook client; OWA simply doesn't support them.

If you just need to use the contents temporarily without mixing it with the contents in users mailbox & without downloading the PST file, which I believe is your goal, you could work around:

  1. Create another user (e.g. new.user New User) with a mailbox.

  2. Import the PST to that mailbox, instead. You can use Power Shell. Administrator need rights:

    New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role "Mailbox Import Export" –User Administrator

    When this permission is granted to your Administrator account, you can import with:

    New-MailboxImportRequest -FilePath \to-be-imported.pst -Mailbox new.user

    With the 50 GB PST file this might take a while. You can monitor the progress with:

    Get-MailboxImportRequest | Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics

Name                       Status        TargetAlias             PercentComplete
----                       ------        -----------             ---------------
MailboxImport              InProgress    new.user                27

  3. After the import, remember to clear completed mailbox import requests with:

    Get-MailboxImportRequest | where {$_.status -eq "Completed"}    `
    | Remove-MailboxImportRequest

  4. Grant the existing user (your.user) full access to this New User´s mailbox:

    Add-MailboxPermission -Identity "New User" -User your.user    `
    -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All

  5. Mailbox appears in Outlook automatically. In OWA you need use Open another mailbox... tool.

Regarding your worries about CAL usage: It depends on your Exchange licensing model. If you had server licenses, not. If you have CALs, it depends on whether they are user or device CALs. But you can always create a shared mailbox, instead. Shared mailboxes don’t have login credentials, so they are only accessible by licensed users who have been granted delegate access.

Esa Jokinen
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  • Thanks mate, but if this is the only option i have, i would have kept the mailbox and not remove it initially, no? if i create or reconnect the mailbox (since i still can reconnect it), will it cost me a CAL? even if it wont be installed on any PC? – Hani El Mouallem Jun 15 '17 at 11:45
  • I updated my answer. Use _shared mailboxes_ to avoid occupying CALs unnecessarily. – Esa Jokinen Jun 15 '17 at 12:11
  • I should check this option, why not. will give it a shot and see what happens. – Hani El Mouallem Jun 15 '17 at 12:18
  • I have no options, i have to keep the mailbox and grant them full access rights to it, other options are rejected. Thanks. – Hani El Mouallem Jun 19 '17 at 08:59