Recreate OST Files in Micosoft Outlook

Amrita Choudhary

Published On - October 17, 2022

An OST file is an offline file that stores an offline copy of the Outlook data on the server. Users are allowed to work even when there is no server connection. At that time, a duplicate copy of the mailbox is created by Microsoft Outlook and stored locally on the user’s system. However, they can become inaccessible for various reasons and cause many issues for Outlook users. Here, we will see more about the issue and its causes.

Reasons behind inaccessible OST files

Some of the reasons behind the OST not accessible or damaged OST files are:

• The large size of OST files
• Network issues during mailbox synchronization
• Forced Outlook termination or system shutdown without closing Outlook
• Incompatible or faulty add-ins
• Bad sectors or problems with the storage media
• Virus or malware intrusion
• Power outage during the mailbox synchronization

Procedure to recreate OST files

After such errors, OST files may not be accessible. Then you may lose your data. But you don’t need to be in tension, as there are ways to re-create and recover the damaged OST files in Outlook.

Here we will discuss the procedure in an easy and effective way so that you can recover your data.

1. Recreate by OST file deletion
   This process is given for Microsoft Outlook 2013 & 2016 versions.
   • Close the Outlook application.
   • Then open Control Panel and then Mail.
   • Now, the Mail Setup wizard appears. Then click on the Email Accounts option on the right side.
   • After that, the account settings box opens. Then select the Data Files tab. Now choose the OST file and click on the Open File Location.
   • Locate the OST file location. After that, delete that file.

   Note: Before deleting the OST file, try to take a backup of the OST file. After that, close all the mail setup and account settings windows in the background.

2. Recreate the OST file by changing the file extension
   • First, you need to close the Outlook window. Then enable the ‘File Name Extensions‘ option from the View menu in File Explorer.
   • Right-click on the OST file and tap on Rename.
   • Change the OST file extension to .bak.
   • Now open Outlook. Microsoft Outlook recreates the OST file and starts synchronizing all messages from the server’s mailbox.
3. Recreate OST File by Moving the Inaccessible OST File
   • You may also move the OST file (cut/paste) from the location to a different folder to rebuild the OST file.
   • Close the MS before moving or deleting the OST file. Otherwise, you may see errors.

Repairing the OST file

Recreating the OST file will work only when the Outlook account and Exchange server perfectly sync. If there are network issues, there can be issues. So our suggestion is to take a professional way to recover the corrupt OST file. Recoveryfix for OST to PST Converter is the best way to retrieve data from the corrupted OST files and save it in a new healthy PST file. It recovers and converts Outlook OST files to PST, MSG, DBX, and EML formats. Even convert the large OST files to PST without losing their original quality.

Final Note

This blog will help you solve your OST issues. We have given some effective methods to recreate OST files. If you do not want to go for the manual way and want an instant solution, then go for Recoveryfix for OST to PST Converter. It is easy to handle. So you can try to solve your error using this tool.