Recover emails from an OST file

Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2021, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013

You can use the OST PST Viewer (pstwalker.exe) to search for and recover emails from an Offline Outlook Data File (.ost). The OST PST Viewer can open orphaned, corrupted, encrypted, and password protected .ost files. Supported command line switches: export emails from an .ost file to .msg, .eml files or .pst file; find and recover hard deleted and orphaned items.

You might want to recover emails from an OST file in the following situations:

• The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.
• Errors have been detected in the file Outlook.ost; Outlook can't open your data file; or Outlook can't open the set of folders.
• Synchronization issues between Outlook and Outlook Web App.

The reason for these errors and other problems in synchronizing might be a corrupted OST file. According to the articles above, Microsoft recommends that you delete your .ost file and that you let Outlook redownload the information from the server that is running Microsoft Exchange Server. After the mailbox is synchronized, test to see whether the issue still occurs.

In some cases, emails may not be recovered from the Exchange Server. An alternative to rebuild the OST file is to export the data to an Outlook Data File (.pst) or MSG File Format (.msg).

How to recover data from .ost file?

1. Close Microsoft Outlook and all other mail-enabled applications that may use your Outlook mailbox.
2. Download the OST PST Viewer, and run it on your computer.
   Download Installer (.exe) Download Portable (.zip)
3. Browse the .ost file you want to recover and click Open.
4. Select mailbox folder in All Folders pane, and preview all your items including messages, contacts, appointments, tasks, notes, and journal entries.
   
5. Go to File > Export.
6. Choose PST - Outlook Data File as file format and All items in this folder and subfolders.
   
7. Select destination folder and click Ok.
8. Wait for the export to finish.

Now you can find the recovered data from OST file in the destination .pst file.

Are there any limits when recover data from .ost file?

There is no limit on the number and size of the recovered OST files. You can convert unlimited folders or files as often as you like. You need PST Walker Business License in order to process the .ost file type.

Command line switches

The program can bulk recover emails from OST file in batch scripts using PowerShell, Task Scheduler and other automation tools. To do this, use the command line options of the product.

pstwalker.exe 
   [filename] 
   [-E:<FileFormatParameter>] 
   [-Name:<NamingStyleParameter>] 
   [-SearchQuery:<String>] 
   [-ExportPath:<DestinationPathParameter>] 
   [-FullScan] 
   [-HardDeleted | -HardDeletedOnly]
   [-Log]

Examples

Example 1

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\PST Walker\"
$PSTFiles = @("c:\a.ost", "c:\b.ost")
foreach ($PST in $PSTFiles){
   .\pstwalker.exe "$PST" --% -E:pst -SearchQuery:'from:(=bobbymoore@contoso.com OR "bobby moore")'-ExportPath:"D:\PST-Exports\"
}

This example searches c:\a.ost and c:\b.ost mailboxes for items in which the e-mail address equals bobbymoore@contoso.com OR sender name contains bobby moore. The search results are exported to D:\PST-Exports\a.pst and D:\PST-Exports\b.pst

When running native commands from PowerShell, the arguments are first parsed by PowerShell. Beginning in PowerShell 3.0, you can use the stop-parsing (--%) token to stop PowerShell from interpreting input as PowerShell commands or expressions.

Example 2

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\PST Walker\
pstwalker.exe c:\users\*.pst -E:eml -ExportPath:"D:\PST-Queries\" -SearchQuery:'subject:"Your bank statement"' -FullScan -HardDeleted

This example searches all .pst files in c:\users folder for messages and hard deleted messages that contain the phrase "Your bank statement" in the subject. The search results are exported as .eml files to D:\PST-Queries\.

See Also