Backup OST

by | Apr 7, 2023 | Backup, Email, Windows

Symptoms

  1. You are using Microsoft Outlook and set it to keep a local copy of your items on your computer (Offline Outlook Data File *.ost).
  2. You create a backup of your machine using VSS.
  3. Backup completes successfully.
  4. The *.ost-file is not present in the backup.

Cause

This is a limitation of Microsoft (link 1, link 2): due to the current design the *.ost-file is not supposed to be backed up.

Solution

Do the following to work around the issue:

  1. Open the Windows Registry Editor (start -> run -> regedit.exe)
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot
  3. Delete the OutlookOST subkey (marked in green):
  4. Create a new backup. The backup should contain the *.ost-file.