About Outlook for Mac Mail

Where does Outlook for Mac store email files?

In Outlook for Mac 2011, the email data folder is called “Messages” and it’s located in the “Documents” path. For example:

/users/[username]/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity/Data Records/Messages

In Outlook for Mac 2016 (aka version 2015), the email data folder is still called “Messages” but located in the “Library” path

/users/[username]/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data/Messages

Note: In Outlook for Mac 2016, the User’s Library folder is hidden by default. To unhide: Select the Finder in the Dock. Under Go in the Menu bar, hold down the Option key and you’ll see the Library.

How does Outlook store email files?

Outlook for Mac versions 2011 and 2016 natively store email content (messages, attachments, contacts, etc.) as a series of individual files nested in folders. These files are in a proprietary format that can be viewed in Outlook only.

Using the Outlook for Mac export feature, you can save messages, attachments, contacts, etc. to an .olm archive file that can be imported into EAS. Exporting email will save all files to a single .olm archive file – by default called “Outlook for Mac Archive.olm” unless the user renames the file during the export process. All mail or just items flagged with a category can be exported. This means there can be multiple .olm archive files present on the file system with various names, e.g.:

Outlook for Mac Archive.olm
archive.olm
2014archive.olm
favrec-archive.olm
saved.olm

And since Outlook for Mac allows the user to select a destination when saving an archive file, the .olm file could be anywhere on the file system (archiving to a downloads folder or to the desktop is common).