How To Fix Broken Outlook Pst File

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A broken Outlook PST file can give jitters. PST file can get broke or damaged due to number of reasons. A PST viewer can help in fixing the corrupt file again. But if you go through this article you would be able to resolve this broken file issue on your own. So, if you use Outlook and you've noticed it being excessively slow or just having errors, you should probably scan and repair your Personal Folders file for any problems. It's sort of check disk for your email.

Repairing Your PST File

To repair your PST file, you'll have to use the Scanpst.exe utility that's included by default with Outlook. It's also known as Inbox Repair tool. The only problem is that there's no shortcut to it, so you'll have to find it in the Outlook folder.

Open up explorer and then browse down to the following folder for Outlook 2007:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12

Or one of these folders for Outlook 2003 and earlier versions,

C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033

C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033

After opening the Scanpst.exe utility, you'll have to find the ...
... location of your PST file by clicking the Browse button.

Click on the Start button to start the scanning process. It will take a while to scan the file, and you'll get a report at the end telling you whether you have errors in the file.

Click on the Repair button, and after a while you'll finally get the Repair complete message.

If you don't know the location, follow the given below instructions to figure out the location of Outlook PST file.
Find Your Outlook PST File Location

If you just have a single PST file created automatically by Outlook, there's a standard location under your user profile directory. Open up an explorer window, and then paste in the following into the address bar:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook

You should see your PST file in the list, usually called Outlook.pst at least in the later versions of Outlook. If you've created a new personal folders file, it might be in a different location.

Find Location of Outlook PST in Non-Standard Location
Sometimes your PST file will be in a different location, for a number of reasons.

Open MS Outlook, right-click on your personal folders location, and then choose Properties.

On the properties screen, click the Advanced button.

Now you'll see the location of the file in the Filename field.

It's a good habit to scan your PST file every so often so you don't lose data. Of course you should be backing up your files as well.

PST viewer software is capable of fixing corrupt or inaccessible Outlook PST file in no matter of time. It recovers deleted email attachments, zipped attachments, images, files, emails, folders, calendars, contacts, tasks, and notes, etc.

Author of the article has expertise in the field of data recovery software, email recovery, email migration, hard drive recovery and Undelete Software. He enjoys writing innovative and technology-based articles on various topics related to notes to outlook, PST Viewer, exchange recovery and excel repair. The entire range of his articles is information-rich and useful for dealing with data recovery issues and finding suitable solution.