Microsoft Outlook is a popular email client to manage personal and professional information. When you configure a POP/POP3 email account in Microsoft Outlook, the client downloads and stores all the mail items, including emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, etc. to a local Personal Storage Table (PST) file by default. Therefore, it’s important to protect the PST file to avoid the loss of mail items due to PST errors or corruption.
Some common PST file errors include:
- The file xxxx.pst is not a personal folder file.
- Errors have been detected in the file xxxx.pst.
- Outlook.pst cannot be accessed – 0x80040116.
- The file xxxx.pst could not be found.
In this article, you will learn how to troubleshoot and resolve the errors detected in the Outlook PST file.
Reasons for Outlook PST Errors
Before moving to the solutions, it’s important to know the reasons that can lead to errors in PST file.
- Large or oversized PST file
- Poor or unstable network
- Hardware failure or software conflicts
- Improper or forced system shutdown
- Virus or malware infection
- System crash
- Corrupt Outlook profile
- Damaged or corrupt PST file
Solutions to Troubleshoot and Resolve Outlook PST Errors
Below are some solutions you can apply to troubleshoot and resolve the errors detected in the Outlook PST file.
1. Update Outlook
Make sure you are running the latest version of the Outlook application. You don’t need to upgrade but must check whether your Outlook client is updated. Updating Outlook can help fix any bugs in the client that may be causing the PST errors. The steps to update Outlook are as follows:
- Open Outlook.
- Click File > Office Account and then select Update Options > Update Now.
- Outlook will check for the latest or new updates. If new updates are available, you will see a wizard to download and apply those latest updates to your Outlook.
Once the updates are downloaded and installed, restart the system and then open Outlook.
In case you cannot find the option to update Outlook, the setting might be disabled by your administrator. In such a case, update the Windows OS. The steps are as follows:
- Open Settings on your Windows PC and click Update & Security > Windows Updates.
- Click the Check for Updates button to check if new updates are available or not.
- If new updates are available, click Install now. This may take a while to complete.
- After the installation process is finished, launch Outlook.
This should resolve the issue and errors in the Outlook PST file if caused by a temporary bug in Outlook or Windows OS.
2. Reduce PST File Size
You can also reduce the PST file size if it’s too large. Either you can use Outlook’s import/export feature or archive old mail items to reduce the local PST file size.
The steps of Import/Export feature are as follows:
- In Outlook, click File > Open & Export and click Import/Export.
- Click Export to a file and click Next.
- Choose Outlook Data File (.pst) and click Next.
- Choose the mail folder you want to export and click the Include subfolders checkbox. Then, click Next.
- Click Browse to choose a location to save this PST file and then click Finish.
- The Outlook will export all the mail items from the selected mailbox folder or folders to the PST file. Once exported, you can delete the mail folder from Outlook to reduce the original PST file size.
- Then, open the exported PST file by going to File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data File and access the mail folder separately.
Alternatively, you can archive some of the mailbox data to reduce PST file size. Follow these steps:
- In Outlook, navigate to File > Info > Tools.
- From the options, choose Clean up old items.
- Then, choose the mail folder or email account you want to archive.
- Select the date from the Archive items older than dropdown.
- Click Browse to choose a location where you would like to save the archived PST file.
- Once done, click OK.
Archiving items older than a certain date moves all the emails older than the selected date to a local PST file. As mentioned earlier, you can access your old archived mail items from the archived PST file anytime.
Note: If you are not able to open Outlook at all due to PST errors, this solution may not apply to you. In such a case, move to the next solution.
3. Run CHKDSK
Use the Check Disk utility or CHKDSK command to repair bad sectors on your hard drive that might be causing errors in the PST file. The steps are as follows:
- Open File Explorer and right-click on the C: drive. Choose Properties.
- In the Properties window, click the Tools tab and click Check.
- If errors are found or not found, you will see the Scan Drive option. Click on the option to scan the disk for bad sectors and fix them.
- Once the scan is finished, you can click Show Details. This will show the errors that were fixed by the utility.
- Then, click Close.
- Now, restart the system and then launch Outlook.
Alternatively, you can open the Command Prompt as administrator and then run the below command to scan the hard drive for bad sectors.
chkdsk
If errors are found, run the below command to fix them.
“chkdsk /f“
4. Create a New Outlook Profile
The Outlook profile, under which your email is configured, sometimes gets damaged or corrupted, leading to errors when accessing the PST file. In such a case, you can create a new profile to resolve the issues. The steps are as follows:
- Close Outlook.
- Launch Control Panel and navigate to User Accounts > Mail.
- Click Show Profiles and then click Add.
- Type any name for this new profile and then click OK.
- You will see an email configuration wizard. Follow the wizard to set up your same email account under this new profile.
- Once the configuration is complete, make this profile as default and then launch Outlook.
- Check if you can access Outlook and send/receive emails without encountering any errors.
5. Remove Faulty Add-ins
You can start Outlook in safe mode to prevent add-ins from loading. The steps are as follows:
- Close all Outlook processes and then press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.
- Type outlook.exe /safe and click OK or press the Enter key. This will start Outlook in safe mode.
- After this, go to File > Options and click Add-ins.
- Here, click the Go… button and then uncheck all checkboxes of the add-ins.
- Click OK to save the changes.
- Once the add-ins are disabled, close Outlook and restart it normally.
If the error is resolved and you don’t see any Outlook PST error, then check and remove the faulty add-in. For this,
- Activate one add-in at a time.
- Restart Outlook and observe any PST-related error.
- If no error is displayed, activate another add-in and restart Outlook.
- Repeat the steps until you find the culprit and then uninstall or remove the add-in from Outlook.
SCANPST or Inbox Repair tool can help fix and repair minor inconsistencies and errors in the Outlook PST file. This tool comes by default with Microsoft Office/Outlook. You can follow these steps to use SCANPST to fix errors detected in Outlook PST.
- On your PC, go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office/Officexx or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office/root/Officexx folder. The location of SCANPST may vary based on the Outlook or Windows version installed on your PC.
- Find and launch the SCANPST.EXE program.
- Click Browse to select the PST file. The default location of PST file is %localappdata%/Microsoft/Outlook or C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.
- After selecting the problematic PST file, click the Start button.
- The tool will scan the PST file. If errors and inconsistencies are found in the PST file, click the Repair button.
- Wait for the repair process to complete. This may take a while to complete based on the level of errors and size of the PST file.
- After the repair, you can simply restart Outlook and start using Outlook without encountering any PST file errors.
SCANPST may fail to repair the PST file if it is:
- Larger than 2 GB
- Severely corrupt or damaged
- Encrypted or password-protected
7. Use Advanced Outlook PST Repair Software
If SCANPST fails to resolve the PST file errors, you can use an advanced Outlook PST file repair software, such as Stellar Repair for Outlook. This professional software can repair and fix severely corrupt or damaged PST files that the Inbox Repair Tool (SCANPST) cannot fix. It can also repair large PST files (up to 50 GB), recover deleted items, and restore all mailbox components to their original form in a new PST file. It can also directly export all the recovered mail items from the corrupt, encrypted, damaged, or inaccessible PST file to a Microsoft 365 account or live Exchange Server mailbox in a few clicks.
Stellar Repair for Outlook also allows users to preview repairable items before saving them. The tool is user-friendly, making it accessible even for non-technical users. Its reliability and efficiency in recovering PST files make it an invaluable resource for any Outlook user facing PST errors.
Conclusion
Outlook PST errors can prevent Outlook users from accessing their email accounts or email items, disrupting the email flow and exchange of emails. This article helps you understand the possible reasons behind the PST file errors and provides solutions to troubleshoot and resolve the errors. If the Outlook PST errors can’t be resolved using the manual solutions and SCANPST, remember to use Stellar Repair for Outlook. The tool helps restore all mail items from corrupt PST files to a new PST file with complete integrity.-
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