Microsoft release open source Outlook PST tools

Microsoft have announced two open source projects which are designed to allow developers to work with Outlook's PST file format. One of the projects, PST Data Structure View Tool (PSTViewTool) is a MFC / C++ applications for viewing the data inside the Microsoft email client's data storage. The other project, PST File Format SDK (pstsdk) is a cross platform C++ library for reading that same information.

The SDK should help developers enable applications such as email clients to, at least, import contact information and other useful data which is retained within Outlook. More ambitiously, it is hoped it will enable developers to create applications which mine Outlook information. According to Peter Galli, Microsoft's Open Source Community Manager, archiving, search and compliance applications or cloud integration are all possibilities. Microsoft says that in the future, the SDK will be enhanced to write data into PST files. Both projects have been released under an Apache 2.0 licence and are hosted on Codeplex.

The PST file format specification, which Microsoft announced it was publishing last year, was finally released in February. The documentation has been revised recently based on community feedback.

(djwm)