The Daily Bulletin

As previously announced, Buffalo State College Information Technology is phasing out support for legacy Outlook data files—also known as Personal Folders, PST files, or Archive folders—by the end of the 2020 calendar year.

Before the introduction of O365 to campus, these offline data files (PST, Personal Folders, Archive) presented a convenient work-around for faculty and staff members given the limited storage capacity of our old on-premise e-mail server. Back then, mailbox sizes for faculty and staff were a mere 1 GB.

Offline data files have limitations. They can be accessed only from the computer on which they are stored. The files also present problems for IT staff members, as these files are often stored outside of the normal automated backup locations, creating additional work when upgrading a user's computer.

Now that O365 storage capacity is significantly larger (mailbox sizes for faculty and staff members are currently 50 GB and will soon increase to 100 GB), it is no longer necessary to store e-mails off-line because of space limitations. Users can now keep e-mail messages in their inbox. With O365, you no longer have to move an e-mail you want to save. 

If you still use Personal or Archive folders in Outlook and wish to keep them, you must move the items stored in these folders back to your "live" mailbox before the end of the 2020 calendar year. Directions are in the IT Knowledge Base.