Errors are a part of our lives. Whether you work on computers or not, it is natural to get error messages. The same is the case with MS Outlook. If you are an MS Outlook user who have an OST file which cannot open, you are at the right place.
OST files are created when you use an IMAP account, Office 365, or MS Exchange server to configure MS Outlook. In such accounts, the OST file contains complete data associated with a user mailbox locally while the server synchronizes everything. Thus, if anything goes wrong with the server, you might get a warning signal in the form of yellow triangle.
There is a reason for every error message that you get while using MS Outlook. To rectify or remove these errors, one has to first understand what causes such errors in the OST file. There are several OST file errors; which you might get while working on MS Outlook but, we will discuss here; why you get the error “OST file cannot be opened”.
What is the “OST File Cannot Be Opened” Error?
The main cause of getting this error message is when the OST file is corrupt. This reason for OST file being corrupt could be many like:
- Sudden system shutdown or power cut
- A server crash or failure due to any virus attack
- Disconnection of OST file from the server
- If the MS Outlook starts working due to any technical glitch
- Any up gradation or reinstallation of MS Outlook
- Any virus attack on your local machine having MS Outlook
- Due to the corruption of the MS Outlook profile
- If various add-ins are incompatible with MS Outlook
In any of the above possible situations, when you try to open the folder in MS Outlook; you will end up getting an “OST file cannot be opened” error. The main cause of that is the corruption of the OST file, which can be rectified by using different methods.
Know how to Repair Corrupt OST File?
To repair an OST file, MS Outlook already has an inbuilt application as ScanPST.exe located in the installation directory of MS Outlook. This free application is designed to remove any possible error that occurs in MS Outlook. All you need is to open and run this application to repair the OST file.
The SCANPST.exe fails to repair major errors but it is certainly helpful for small issues. Out of all the OST file-related errors, SCANPST can repair the minute errors that occur due to improper functioning of MS Outlook, but if the issue is related to the data file or server or it is a severe error; the SCANPST.exe app fails to work. In this situation, it becomes difficult to repair the OST file, and the error message “OST file cannot be opened”, remains as it is.
To overcome this, you can also try to recreate the OST file. For this, you need to simply close the MS Outlook and delete the OST file by navigating to its location. After this, restart the Outlook and let the application create a new OST file by synchronizing with the server.
Besides this, you can find some online tools to repair the OST file or convert the OST file into PST file format. That will help export all the data from your erroneous OST file into a healthy PST file, which you can further import into MS Outlook to open and view the data in it.
How to Convert OST File into PST File Format?
If you have decided to convert the OST file into a PST file to combat the error “OST file cannot be opened”; you are all sorted now. All you need is the right tool for doing the OST to PST file conversion. For which, you can opt Magus OST to PST conversion tool. It can migrate complete data from an OST file into a PST file keeping the folder structure and other associated data intact. You can follow the step-by-step guide to learn how to convert OST into PST file format using the software.
Extracting and converting OST file data into PST is the savior for you when everything else fails to work. Making an inaccessible OST file accessible is a challenging job thus; doing it manually or using a free method will not always work. That’s why it is always recommended to convert the OST into PST file format so that; you do not lose your important data.
