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 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.
Information: After deleting the .ost file, any items that are saved locally will be lost. For example, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and any folders marked Local only. In this situation, we recommend that you backup your existing .ost file.
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).
Now you can find the recovered data from OST file in the destination .pst 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.
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.
Note: Command line parameters are not available in the Home license.
pstwalker.exe
[filename]
[-E:<FileFormatParameter>]
[-Name:<NamingStyleParameter>]
[-SearchQuery:<String>]
[-ExportPath:<DestinationPathParameter>]
[-FullScan]
[-HardDeleted | -HardDeletedOnly]
[-Log]
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.
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\.
This guide explains how to open, find and extract emails from .pst files and .ost files with portable PST Viewer.
You can use this guide to convert OST to PST file format, in case of data loss on the mail server, or when you need to recover a deleted, orphaned or inaccessible OST file.
Boolean search, Excel-like filtering, instant search. Supports any .pst and .ost files: corrupted, orpah, archive, password protected and encrypted files. Export search results to numerous formats.
Learn how to troubleshoot missing data or emails in Outlook for Microsoft 365, and the steps to recover them if possible. Recover deleted messages in a user's mailbox in Exchange Online.