What to do if your Outlook file is unreachable.

As my mum used to say, with her Celtic logic, ‘There it was, gone’. Back from my summer break to face the email backlog. But my version of Microsoft’s Outlook was definitely not back at work. This is what it said.

Errors have been detected in the fill. Quit all mail-enabled applications, and then use the Inbox Repair Tool.

There was no warning of this breakdown. With the benefit of hindsight I have discovered that when approaching this limit, Outlook may not save or retrieve items. Some emails were not in the ‘sent’ box. I was loosing emails. But things were going to get worse.

Finding the PST file where Outlook stores all of the messsages was not easy. On most PCs with MS Office installed you should find it at documents & settings/ your computer user name / local settings/ application data / Microsoft / outlook which is quite a hike, with lots of folders with similar names to lead you astray.

A little investigation led to the discovery that the 2 Gigabyte limit on the size of the Outlook PST file has been increased to 10 or 20 Gb for recent versions. So, no problem. Get rid of a few of those old emails with large attachments and all would be well. Or so I thought.

Plan A – Recover the file and delete old emails

First, I had to recover the PST file so I could actually delete the old emails. You will probably need to do all of this repair on the same machine where the tool is run. The files are very large so you can’t write them to a CD/DVD. Make sure that your hard disk has space.

Microsoft provides the ‘Inbox Repair Tool’ for correcting most problems with damaged PST files. This tool did not appear on my Start menu so I used the Find (or Search - depending on your operating system) to locate scanpst.exe. (It is normally located at C:program files/common files/system/mapi/1033/NT or /95)

Scanpst.exe does an 8-stage test and repair. It asks if you want to make a backup copy of the original file (always say ‘Yes’), then the program tries to correct the errors. Microsoft suggests that seriously corrupted PST files should be checked with scandisk.exe followed by scanpst.exe. They suggest an iterative process that you do until both files show no errors. It didn’t work for me.

With the file repaired and renamed and back in the correct location (see above), I could access my email again. I recommended that you disconnect your communications link. If you don’t, the moment you restore your file it will probably been taken back over the limit, as mail is downloaded, and you will have to start again.

I monitored the size of the file as I set about deleting emails with large files attached but to my astonishment, the PST file did not change size. I went away to scratch my head and when I came back, the file was broken again. The file was thoroughly broken.

Plan B – Use the Microsoft crop tool

Microsoft has a utility to recover items in the PST file by reducing its size below the critical limit. (MS Knowledge base - 296088 Oversized PST and OST Crop Tool)

Extract the downloaded file to an empty folder and run 2gb152.exe. Then select the oversized PST file, click ‘Create’ and set the name and location for the new PST file plus the location for the new file. It might be easier to move the PST file to the empty folder you are using so all of the work and backups are in the same place. You can then move things back after all the work is done.

Select how much space to remove. MS suggests starting with 15 – 20 MB. Then click ‘Start’. You now need to use the repair on this file in order to use it as your outlook.pst file so run scanpst.exe on the reduced file (see plan A).

This is a lengthy process and one that takes over all of the disk access resources so it is fine to do some word processing or spreadsheet work, but avoid anything that requires constant disk access. The restored and reduced file worked just long enough to let me export the accounts and many of the emails. Then it broke again.

Plan C – Give up

Most head teachers have uplifting messages on their walls. Schools like to have mottos that kid you that dreams actually come true. My primary school headmaster had a notice at the front of his desk which read ‘If at first you don’t succeed, to hell with it’.

Following that maxim, when all of this fixing failed to provide a stable email file I looked for other solutions. These were the options.

1. Think about upgrading your version of Outlook – Expensive
2. Hope that you have a workable PST on a laptop or older computer – A useful backup.
3. Or download Thunderbird – Which was my choice.

Suddenly the outlook for my email, if not Outlook itself, looks good.

Of course, things move on. Modern versions of Outlook don't have these problems and there are some serious rivals in the emails client area to Outlook (such as Thunderbird, the sibling of Firefox). But outlook is still the leader in the integrated diary and shared office environment with many apps to support the integration with mobile devices.

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