Outlook PST: looking at it from the outside

[John Gray]

Does anyone know any way of determining from outside Outlook when messages have appeared in an Outlook 2010 PST, been sent, or been deleted? Monitoring the size and date/time of the PST seems to indicate that in normal circumstances, its timestamp and filesize do not change in the period between opening and closing Outlook.

I would like to back up the PST* soon after there has been a change to its contents, but I can't see any obvious way of knowing from the outside that there has been a change on the inside.

Thanks

* yes, using VSS!

[HansV]

I'm not sure this would work - when Outlook is active, the .pst file is locked; when it isn't active, no mails are being received or sent.

[John Gray]

VSS enables you to back it up, even when it's open/locked! I corrected errors in my BATch file, and find that the file timestamp is updated (with no external action like mail messages appearing, or being deleted, having occurred) at least every two minutes... So no help there, then!

I think I would like a utility that examines the (open) PST and can tell me the total number of messages in each of the InBox, Sent and Deleted folders...

[Leif]

I would like to back up the PST* soon after there has been a change to its contents...

...and find that the file timestamp is updated ... at least every two minutes...

I would guess the time-stamp changes whenever there is an automatic send-receive.

But how soon is 'soon after'? If the user is doing housekeeping in their Inbox, for example, they could be deleting an email every ten seconds or so. Do you want a backup that often? You may as well backup every two minutes when the time-stamp changes...

[John Gray]

I would guess the time-stamp changes whenever there is an automatic send-receive.

But how soon is 'soon after'? If the user is doing housekeeping in their Inbox, for example, they could be deleting an email every ten seconds or so. Do you want a backup that often? You may as well backup every two minutes when the time-stamp changes...

The send-receive theory would be good bar the fact that the automatic send-receive is set to five minutes, and my "check-every-two-or-so-minutes-for any-change but only report when there is a change" doesn't seem to match a five-minute interval. See below:

05/09/2011 10:04:04 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:03, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:09:57 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:08, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:11:54 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:10, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:13:52 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:13, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:19:45 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:18, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:21:42 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:20, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:23:40 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:23, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:29:33 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:28, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:35:26 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:33, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:37:24 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:36, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:39:21 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:38, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:45:14 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:43, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:49:10 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:49, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:51:07 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:51, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 10:55:02 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:54, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:00:55 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 10:59, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:04:51 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:04, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:10:44 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:09, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:14:39 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:14, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:16:37 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:16, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:20:32 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:20, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:24:27 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:24, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:30:20 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:29, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:36:13 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:34, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:40:08 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:39, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:44:04 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:42, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:46:01 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:44, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:49:57 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:49, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:51:54 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:50, size is 411673600
05/09/2011 11:55:50 PST timestamp is 05/09/2011 11:55, size is 411673600

Of course I won't be doing a backup every two minutes - I am trying to determine the number of messages in each queue (and probably will be interested only in the InBox and Sent queues...) and will use that probably on some sort of event-drive basis.