MS Outlook is a widely used email client application in the organizations to carry out the internal communication within the organizational hierarchy. While the communication is carried out in terms of e-mails and tasks, sometimes critical situations arise and set impossible goals for the users that not only consumes the time but also affects the resources.
The criticality of the issue depends upon the availability of the solution. Unlike Inbox repair utility, which is usually considered as the niche solution to most of the Outlook related issues, there are some solutions which are totally of different origin and needs special expertise to employ them.
In such category, “Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file” falls where it clearly states some issue with the Outlook PST file. If the corrective action is not taken by the user, then definitely all data is vulnerable to damage.
“Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file” issue is encountered by the user in different situations.
When the Mail has ‘Read-only’ attribute
In MS Outlook, only those emails can be accessed which have read and write attribute. If the email has an attribute of only ‘Read’, then any attempt in opening it would result into PST error. In such case there are chances that the concerned PST FILE(S) can lose the properties and could not be recovered.
Choosing ‘Importing’ over Outlook
The chances of occurrence of ‘Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file’ are elevated when the PST files are directly imported from the source instead of accessing the PST file directly by MS Outlook.
Failed attempts of Inbox Repair Utility
PST files get corrupt due to numerous reasons like malware attack, Windows firewall settings, faulty add-ins, bad internet connection, incorrect Exchange server configuration, suspicious emails, links, etc. Every Microsoft Outlook version is provided by Inbox Repair Utility, but this utility successfully repairs those PST files which are infected with low severity bugs. In case the PST files are having the bugs of high severity, the user is always suggested to take assistance of the third-party that can precisely resolve the issue.
Malware or potential threat
Other than the technical issues which abstain the PST file from opening, there are other reasons also that do such needful act. These reasons are infection of file with virus, worm or other hackable and self-executable program that may make the user’s machine a zombie.
The issues which inhibit the PST files from getting open can be resolved in different ways, provided that the user must be aware of some technicalities.
Un-Mark ‘Read-only’ PST files
As discussed the PST files with ‘Read-only’ attribute cannot be accessed directly. So, to access them the user has to disable its ‘Read-only’ property after copying it from the external hard drive. First, right-click on the PST file and then select the Properties option. From the Properties dialogue box, select the “Read and Write” permission to disable the “Read-only” property for the file. Once the property is disabled, the file comes under the attribute of ‘Read/write’ and can be accessed easily.
Choose ‘Outlook’ over ‘Importing’
To open the PST file which is available in the system, it is suggested to use MS Outlook rather than the importing option. When direct MS Outlook is leveraged to access the file, the PST file gets open without causing any trouble to the user.
Using ‘Inbox Repair Utility’
Inbox repair utility fixes minor technical glitches of the Outlook files which are having accessibility problems. It is available at location – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICEV or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICEV. However, if the Outlook file remains inaccessible even after running the Inbox repair utility, then it is advised to take assistance form a reliable third-party tool.
Ensuring clean PST file
The binary files are subject to corruption due to virus, worm or other self-executable files which may hamper the functioning of the system. Therefore, the user system must have certain applications that can deal with them directly without mutating the file properties or system’s performance.
“Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file” issue occurrence is quite common and its resolutions are even simple. In case the corruption is too severe or the file is more than 2GB size, Inbox Repair Tool will also fail in repairing it hence the need of a professional tool arises. It is the professional PST Repair tool which could handle such issues by repairing the severely corrupted file within minutes. While repairing the corrupted or damaged file, the tool maintains the data integrity of file and do not lose a single bit of information during the process.
