A CLI tool to explore and extract data from Outlook PST files.
Check the instructions on the latest release page.
pstexplorer <COMMAND>
Commands:
list List all emails in a PST file
search Search emails in a PST file by query string (matches from, to, cc, body)
browse Browse PST file contents in a TUI
stats Print statistics about a PST file
export Export a PST file to a SQLite database
Print a summary of the PST file: folder count, email/calendar/contact/task/note counts, attachment count, and date range.
PST Statistics: "testdata/testPST.pst"
Folders: 2
Total items: 6
Emails: 6
Attachments: 0
Earliest message: 2014-02-24 21:14:34 UTC
Latest message: 2014-02-26 12:20:19 UTC
List all emails with subject, sender, recipient, and date. Supports --format csv|tsv|json for structured output and --limit to cap the number of entries.
Case-insensitive full-text search across from, to, cc, and body fields. Supports the same --format options as list.
$ pstexplorer search --format json -- testdata/testPST.pst "tika"
[
{
"folder": "Début du fichier de données Outlook",
"subject": "\u0001\u0001[jira] [Resolved] (TIKA-1249) Vcard files detection",
"from": "Nick Burch (JIRA)",
"to": "dev@tika.apache.org",
"cc": "",
"date": "2014-02-26 12:20:25 UTC"
},
{
"folder": "Début du fichier de données Outlook",
"subject": "\u0001\u0001[jira] [Commented] (TIKA-1250) Process loops infintely processing a CHM file",
"from": "Gary Murphy (JIRA)",
"to": "dev@tika.apache.org",
"cc": "",
"date": "2014-02-26 12:12:25 UTC"
}
]Export folders and messages to a SQLite database for further analysis. Use --output to set the database path and --limit to cap the number of exported messages.
Tip
export to a SQLite db and then use uvx datasette to visually browse the data
Interactive terminal UI for navigating folders and reading messages.
The plugins/ folder includes a Datasette plugin which makes browsing emails a bit easier, by providing detail views with next/prev buttons and a layout which separates header data.
After exporting an SQLite db with pstexplorer export my.pst run:
uvx datasette serve my.db --plugins-dir plugins/
Run the playwright-driven integration test for this datasette plugin with:
uv run --with datasette --with pytest --with pytest-playwright pytest
