---
title: "Search PST Archives"
url: https://lookeen.com/use-cases/pst-archives
lang: en
description: "Search old Outlook archives, former employees' PST files and whole PST folders on the server – together with the current mailbox."
published: 2026-10-12T10:00:00+00:00
modified: 2026-10-12T10:00:00+00:00
---

# Search PST Archives

Years of correspondence sit in PST files – on drives, in project folders, from colleagues who moved on long ago. Lookeen makes these archives searchable again without opening them in Outlook.

[Try it free](https://lookeen.com/get-started) [PST search details](https://lookeen.com/solutions/outlook-search/search-pst-files)

## The typical situation

PST files are often scattered and tedious to search.

### Scattered archives

PST files sit on local disks, network drives and backups.

### Knowledge of former staff

Important matters live in mailbox exports of people who are no longer around.

### Slow and tedious

Opening and searching each PST in Outlook one by one takes time.

## How Lookeen helps

Lookeen adds PST files to the index, with all permissions.

### Single files or whole folders

With Lookeen Server, add single PST files or entire directories full of PSTs as a source.

### A schedule per location

Each PST location gets its own indexing frequency – from "always" through hourly and daily to "once" for closed archives.

### Together with the mailbox

PST content appears alongside current emails, files and Exchange data in one result list.

### Permissions preserved

Lookeen Server reads the permissions of PST items at index time and only shows results to authorized users.

## Good to know

What else Lookeen finds in PST archives besides the emails themselves.

-   **Attachments included:** Attachments inside PST archives are searched by content and shown in the preview.
-   **Scanned attachments:** With OCR enabled, scanned PDFs and TIFFs inside PST files become searchable too.
-   **On the workstation:** Lookeen Desktop searches the PST files connected in Outlook as well.

Learn more: [Email search](https://lookeen.com/use-cases/email-search) · [eDiscovery & internal research](https://lookeen.com/use-cases/ediscovery-research)

[All use cases →](https://lookeen.com/use-cases)