Many users setup MS Outlook incorrectly when dealing with multiple email addresses making email management more difficult for them. This post shows the best way to set-up multiple email addresses within Outlook making your work load a lot easier to handle.

Not everyone needs multiple email addresses but there are business people that do. Lets say for an email you want to have separate emails for support queries, accounts queries and so on. First setup those email address with your email provider, this is usually the hosting company where your domain resides. Once you have all the email addresses setup that you need its time to start configuring Outlook to handle them.

First add the email accounts as you normally would, open Outlook and click on Tools> Account Settings and from here you can add each email address – you will need the account settings provided by your host.

Should now see a screen like the below:

Most users tend to think this is how to setup multiple email addresses within Outlook but we are missing the most important steps, splitting the email addresses up into separate PST files. You can use a single PST for multiple addresses but its not recommended when you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of emails. The reason being is that PST files can become corrupt (for whatever reason) so instead of losing all your emails after a corruption breaking up the PST lowers the risk of losing everything.

The default location for a PST file is: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\ and the default PST is usually called Outlook.pst – We are now going to setup more than one PST file and give each one a different name to reflect the email address that uses it.

For now, leave the default email address (in my case its support@) so that its using Outlook.pst. Click on the 2nd email address to highlight it and click on Change Folder, the following screen will appear:

Click on New Outlook Data File and you should see the following screen:

If you are using a new version of Outlook select the first option Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) If using Outlook97 – 2002 select the 2nd option. The next screen should appear:

This window opens the default location of where the PST files are held. In the File name: box near the bottom give the new file a name that reflects the name of the email address that is to be used, in my case its dataharm-admin.pst and now click ok – you will now be presented with the below screen (create Microsoft Personal Folders)

You are provided with the default path of the file and you should be able to edit the Name: field. Enter a name that reflects the email address, in my case here its called Admin. You can also password protect the PST file which is recommend but make sure that you keep a record of the password or you’ll be unable to access your PST file in the future.  Once you are happy with these options click OK and now the mail folder will be created.

Repeat the same steps above for each email address you have in Outlook until you have created a new PST file for each address. Once completed you should now have a list of multiple inboxes within Outlook as shown below:

Remember, if you want to backup your emails you now need to backup each PST file that you have created.