How to use PST Walker

Basic Functions

After installing PST Walker, locate a Microsoft Outlook .pst or Microsoft Exchange .ost file on the hard drive of your PC.

You have two options when opening a file: "Like Microsoft Outlook" and "Extensive Scan". The extensive scan option will allow you to recover data from a damaged or a corrupted file but takes longer to load depending on file size. Try both options and compare.



When the .pst file opens, you'll think you're looking at your email program! All of your contact information, email files and folder, and calendar information is present.



If you want to view several emails at once in separate windows, select several messages and click "Selected Items" from the View tab on the menu. Numerous messages can be selected using the standard ctrl-left click and shift-left click commands.



PST Walker also lets you save any attachments that are on your emails. Select the email of your choice that has an attachment you wish to save, and select "Save Attachments" from the "File" menu button. Attachments can be opened by double-click as well.

Search Function

Having all of your email available isn't really worthwhile if you can't find what you want. Fortunately, PST Walker has a great search function.

Input the search query you want in the search box and click "Enter". In the example used below, "March", was used in the search field. After the search is performed, only matching entries are displayed.



Click "x" to clear the search results and show the contents of the entire folder.

Advanced Search

To enable advanced search select "Enable boolean search" under "Tools->Search Options...". Boolean search is a type of search allowing you to broaden, limit, and define your search.



Examples:
Using AND narows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve emails that use both the search terms you specify, as in this example:

• July AND "Discount *%"

Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you type in.

• July OR August

Using NOT will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms.

• NOT July

You can always combine multiple search strategies to focus your search to ensure that you find just the emails you want. Here are some examples of more complex searches.

• (July OR August) AND Discount
• July AND NOT Discount

Export Function

With "Bulk Save As" under File menu you can convert Outlook 97-2007 .pst files to MSG files. There are three options to save:

• Selected items
• All items in this folder
• All items in this folder and subfolders

And two options for titles: item subject and incremental numeric Id.

Command line options

Have a lot .pst files to repair, but process requires more manual intervention than you want? Automate it with command line options.

pstwalker.exe [filename] [/E[:msg|umsg|eml] [/Name[:Id|EntryId|Subject]] [/PATH:folder] [/FullScan] [/HardDeleted] [/HardDeletedOnly]]

filename

Specifies the .pst files to process. A filename mask can be applied, e.g. c:\source_folder\*.pst

/E

Bulk extract messages to:

• msg - .msg file format
• umsg - unicode .msg file format
• eml - .eml(rfc 822) file format

/Name

Naming style for the saved messages:

• Id - incremental Id
• EntryId - PR_ENTRYID (unique message identifier)
• Subject - message subject

/PATH

Specifies destination folder for bulk extracted messages

/FullScan

Extensive scan (to recover data from a damaged or a corrupted .pst, .ost files)

/HardDeleted

Find 'hard deleted' and 'orphaned' items

/HardDeletedOnly

Export only 'hard deleted' and 'orphaned' items

See Also