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RobertW1971's avatar
RobertW1971
Copper Contributor
Jan 17, 2026

Migrating Outlook folders from old to new laptop Windows 11

Hi, 

How do I get my old Outlook folders of emails from my previous laptop onto my new laptop?

December 2025 I have bought a new DELL 16 laptop Windows 11 and MS Office Personal 2021. 

Old laptop is a 2019 DELL Inspiron Windows 11 Microsoft Office Personal Plus 16.0. (Storage full, battery lasts 10 minutes, fan makes an odd noise - hence new Laptop bought)

The new laptop has Outlook working perfectly for new emails etc.

How do I transfer my old Outlook folders (which are stored on the old laptop) onto the new laptop?

I want to use my new laptop for everything.

At the moment, my old email folders all the way back to 2014 or something are on my old laptop, which seems a bit mad.

How do I migrate the old laptop folders and emails onto the new laptop?

Many thanks

 

1 Reply

  • RobertSparnaaij's avatar
    RobertSparnaaij
    MVP
    Jan 25, 2026

    Much depends on the account type that you are using on your old laptop. It sounds like this was a POP3 account. In that case, your data is stored in a pst-file.

    To find out the location of your pst-file use;
    File-> Account Settings-> Account Settings...- tab: Data Files

    Close Outlook and copy over the pst-file to your new computer. Make sure you do it to a location to which you have read/write access and that it isn't a location which is synced with Cloud Storage such as OneDrive or Dropbox.

    Then on your new computer, you can connect to your pst-file via;
    File-> Open & Export-> Open Outlook Data File...

    For more details, step-by-step instructions and screenshots see;
    Backup and Restore all Outlook data - Robert 365

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