An OST file holds a full copy of an Exchange or Microsoft 365 mailbox, but no text editor, search tool, or script can read it — the format is binary and tied to the Outlook profile that created it. Total Outlook Converter exports OST emails to plain text files in batch, so the content becomes searchable, scriptable, and readable anywhere.

• Batch export. Convert hundreds or thousands of messages from an OST file to TXT in one run — select folders, not individual emails.
• Custom text layout. Choose which fields go into the output: sender, recipients, date, subject, body. Skip what you don't need.
• Attachments under control. Attached files are saved alongside the text output in their original format; Total Outlook Converter Pro can additionally convert attachments.
• More than TXT. The same tool exports OST and PST emails to PDF, DOC, HTML, TIFF, JPEG, and EML.
• Command line included. Schedule exports via .bat scripts or run them on a server.

OST vs Plain Text: Why Convert at All?

OST (Offline Storage Table) is Outlook's local cache of a server mailbox. It is convenient exactly once: inside the Outlook profile that owns it. Everywhere else it is a problem — you cannot grep it, index it, attach it to a case file, or open it on a machine without the original account.

Plain text is the opposite: every operating system, search indexer, review platform, and script reads it. Converting OST to TXT turns a closed mailbox snapshot into files you can search with Windows Search or any grep tool, feed to scripts and data pipelines, quote in reports, and archive for years without worrying about Outlook versions.

How to Convert OST to Text

1. Download Total Outlook Converter — the 30-day trial is free and asks for no credit card or email.
2. Install and launch the program. It picks up your Outlook data automatically and shows the mailbox tree.
3. Tick the folders or messages you want to export. A whole Inbox, selected subfolders — any combination.
4. Click the TXT button in the format bar.
5. Set the options: which header fields to include, where to place attachments, how to name the output files.
6. Press Start! and pick up the text files in the destination folder.

Command-Line Conversion

Total Outlook Converter ships with a command-line interface for unattended jobs. A nightly archive task in a .bat file looks like this:

OutlookConverter.exe "C:\Mail\backup.ost" "C:\Archive\TXT\" -cTXT

Run it from Task Scheduler and yesterday's mail lands in the archive every morning — no clicks involved. The full switch list is in the program's Help.

Why Total Outlook Converter?

It handles the whole mailbox, not single messages

Forwarding emails one by one or copy-pasting bodies stops being an option somewhere around the twentieth message. The converter processes folders with thousands of emails in a single run and names the output files consistently.

The output is configurable

A legal review needs sender, date, and body; a data pipeline may need only the body text. The export settings let you pick the fields once and apply them to every message in the batch.

One license covers eight formats

When the next task needs PDF for filing or EML for re-import, the same program does it — no second purchase. PDF, DOC, HTML, XHTML, TXT, TIFF, JPEG, and EML are built in.

Honest licensing

A personal license is a one-time $49.90 — no subscription. The trial runs 30 days with no credit card. Windows 7/8/10/11 are supported.

When Do You Need OST to Text Conversion?

• Legal discovery and compliance. Counsel asks for correspondence in a reviewable form: plain text files with headers satisfy the request without granting access to a live mailbox.
• Leaving Exchange or Microsoft 365. When an account is being decommissioned, a TXT export keeps the history readable after the server and the profile are gone. If you need the mailbox itself preserved for Outlook, convert OST to PST instead.
• Search across years of mail. Windows Search, grep, or a desktop indexer can answer "who promised what and when" in seconds — once the mail is text.
• Feeding email archives to scripts and AI tools. Text files are the native input for indexing, classification, and analysis pipelines; OST files are unreadable to them.

Related: OST to PDF for court-ready documents, Total Outlook Converter overview, and the Pro version if attachments must be converted into the output documents.

Total Outlook Converter Customer Reviews 2026

"We had to produce three years of correspondence from a departed employee's offline mailbox. Total Outlook Converter turned the OST into clean text files with headers intact — the review platform ingested them without a single complaint. The batch run covered about 11,000 messages overnight."

Marcus Whitfield Litigation Support Specialist

"We decommission Exchange accounts every month and keep a plain-text archive of each mailbox. The command line does the whole job from a scheduled task: OST in, TXT out, attachments in a subfolder. Set it up once in February and have not touched it since."

Inge Sorensen IT Administrator, logistics company

"Auditors wanted searchable copies of selected folders, not access to Outlook. Exporting to text with the date and sender fields included took the issue off my desk in an afternoon. One star off only because I had to read the Help to find the field settings — after that, smooth."

Priya Raman Compliance Officer

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