Microsoft Outlook is a full-featured and widely used email client. When this application is used with Exchange all the mailbox data is stored in the OST aka offline storage table file format. This file is exactly the replica of the mailbox items stored on the Exchange server. Despite being one of the best email clients, Sometimes the Outlook users have to face the Corruption problem.
These corruption issues cause immense inconvenience to Outlook users in opening the OST file. Let us understand the help problem faced by Outlook users.
“Hello everyone! All of a sudden when I try to open Outlook application I got an error message cannot open OST file Outlook. When I clicked OK the error message closes. I think my OST file has been corrupted. But this OST file contains my most crucial data. Can anyone tell how to access the OST file items in this situation”
In case if you are also facing the above situation or your OST file is corrupted or damaged then this article is for you. This post will be going to help you to understand the potential reasons which cause corruption in the OST file. Also to resolve this cannot open Outlook 2016 OST file error.
We will discuss the manual as well as an automated method to resolve this issue. Before proceeding to the solutions part let us discuss the reasons first,
Know The Reasons Which Causes Corruption in The OST File
OST file corruption is a common problem when unavoidable circumstances can happen. Here are the reasons for this OST file corruption issue.
1. Virus or Malware Intrusion.
2. Abnormal Outlook termination.
3. Sudden power failure issues.
4. Due to large-sized OST files.
5. Abrupt network connection.
6. data storage device failure.
7. Incompatible Outlook plugins.
Manual Method to Resolve Cannot Open Outlook 2016 OST File Error
The user can try the inbox repair tool Scanpst.exe to repair Outlook OST file data. This utility helps to resolve only minor glitches of this OST files. For Outlook 2010 and the above versions, the user can use Scanpst.exe to repair the Outlook data files. But in case if you are using below 2007 versions then you have to use Scanost.exe ( Integrity checker utility) to resolve corruption issues of the OST file.
1. First Exit the Outlook application and Browse the Scanpst.exe
2. Now Open Scanpst.exe.
3. Select the browse option and select the OST file and click on the Start button.
4. If the scan finds errors choose the repair option to fix the errors.
Note: This utility can work if a minor level of corruption is present in the OST file. If the user is unable to repair the OST file then the user can choose the automated solution to resolve this issue.
Expert Solution to Resolve Cannot Open Outlook 2016 OST File Error
If the Scanpst utility cannot repair the OST file then the user can try the Exchange OST Recovery software. This software is the perfect solution to recover the data from the corrupted as well damaged OST file. In case if your OST file is corrupted or orphaned then the user can use this software. This tool gives you various options to save the OST file data as Outlook PST / EML / MSG / Office 365 / HTML / PDF. This software is easily operable, build with powerful recovery algorithms. For complete info, the user can try the free version of this software.
Conclusion
Sometimes Microsoft Outlook users have to face cannot open Outlook 2016 OST file error issue. Due to this, the user won’t be able to access the OST file mailbox items. In this article, we have given several reasons for this error. So to resolve this issue the user can try the Scanpst.exe to repair the OST file data, but this method has major limitations. It will help to resolve only minor level corruption problems. In that case, it better to take the help automated solution by using OST recovery application.
