Quick Tips

OST Recovery: Recover Data from Orphan Offline Folders

Have you ever noticed deleted messages accumulating back to the inbox? Recently, I faced the same situation where I received a message that was not of use and I deleted the same as I am habitual of organized mailbox.

ost_recovery

Next time, when I sign-in to my Outlook OST profile, same message tends to appear in the Inbox and marked as ‘Unread’. I tried deleting the message but failed to do so and then I realized that the message is corrupted.

Synopsis of the Situation!

The problem does not ended here as this corrupted message also affected the synchronization ability of the OST file. Initially, I tried rectifying the problem through ISINTEG and ESEUTIL utility but these also failed to do the needful. Afterwards, we also tried moving mailbox to another Server but this measure also proved to be time consuming.

Next, without wasting any time in any other workaround procedures, I proceed towards employing OST Recovery software. Finally, the tool proved to be helpful and all the incorporated data from OST file was recovered.

Why OST Recovery?

The foremost reason behind selecting this particular tool is its ability to deal with orphan OST files. Since the file failed to sync with the Exchange account, as a result it became orphan.

ost-recovery

It allows recovering deleted data from mailbox folders including emails, contacts, journals, etc. Additionally, it enables restoring data components in the form of EML, MSG and PST. Apart from this, other features of the tool are mentioned herein:

Advance Scan

When the affected OST is uploaded to the tool, default Quick Scan is performed on the file. This recovers data from the file that includes minimal corruption. But in my case, as the damage appears to be of higher extent, I decided to execute ‘Advance’ scan on the file.

step1

Preview Items

Once the scanning gets completed, the integrated OST items get enlisted in the tool panel. This provides the ease to view the recovered components and choose the enlisted items for recovery as per requirement.

step2

Selective Emails Recovery

This helps saving time as well as regulates the volume of the resultant file. When the recovered items get enlisted in the panel, they appear with individual checkboxes with each item. It provides the option to select only required items for export while dumping unnecessary components.

step3

Selective Folders Recovery

Suppose, I do not need to recover ‘Deleted items’ folder considering it is not required for future reference. By clicking on the corresponding checkbox, the respective item can be excluded from the list of folders that needs to be recovered.

Mail Filters

This option is useful if it requires recovering selected period data, for example: emails for last 6 months. By providing correct and accurate date particulars, the email messages for specified time span can be restored back on machine.

Storage Options:

After recovery, the tool allows to export recovered data to PST, MSG and EML file formats. Apart from this, there are complementary storage advantages being offered.

While saving data to PST files, it offers to save output files in split partitions.

EML and MSG file formats allows saving files with appropriate naming notations.

step4

Technical Specifications

Although, the OST Recovery tool comes with very limited size specs i.e., 16.2 MB; there are minimal system specifications set for successful software installation.

  • 1 GB Ram and 2.4 GHz system processor.
  • 20 MB free space on system hard drive.
  • Windows OS 8.1 or any lower version.
  • Supports MS Outlook 2003 or above versions.

Note: The tool delivers Unicode type PST files, so Outlook versions compatible with this file format are required to be installed.

Relevant Information

The latest version of the tool is v4.3 and the user licenses are available in different categories that can be utilized as per usage.

  • Personal license
  • Corporate license
  • Technician license
  • Enterprise license

Each of the above mentioned categories are available in Demo as well as Licensed version. The demo version comes with restricted usage and allows exporting only 25 items to each available file format. Also, this version do not allow to convert the body and attachment part of the calendars, journals, contacts, notes and tasks while exporting to PST format.

However, the ‘Licensed’ version of the tool allows recovery and conversion of complete mailbox components to the selected file format.

Getting Difficulty Accessing the Tool?

Though, the GUI of the OST Recovery tool is self explanatory as well as involves easy-to-follow recovery and conversion procedure; the online tutorials can be referred to, in case of difficulties. The online reference on the working procedure of the tool is available in two forms:

Online Video tutorials

Functional Screen shot

Sometimes, the location of the OST files remains unknown as it solely depends upon the version of Windows OS as well as the Outlook application. Therefore, these files can be found at the following given locations on machine;

Windows 7 or Vista:

“drive:UsersuserAppDataLocalMicrosoftOutlook…”

Windows XP:

“drive:Documents and SettingsuserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook…”

Note: The default name for OST file is Outlook.ost.

Improvements Required

Export OST to PST Software provides several complementary benefits such as recovery of permanently deleted items from the mailbox, splitting files into smaller segments while saving to PST, naming conventions while saving to EML, selective items export, etc. Besides these, there are certain necessities that need to be added to the tool.

It does not support batch processing of OST files and modifications made into this arena can help making it more functional. Though, bulk files can be recovered using the tool but on one at a time basis. Thus, developers must pay additional attention towards adding this very perspective to the tool.

Final Evaluation based on Assessment

First, I would like to mention that this analysis and assessment for the tool v4.3 is done on the basis of its ‘Personal License’. Further, this can be concluded that it offers some impeccable features as well as complimentary options as far as the functionality is concerned.

Thus, the tool can be considered as quick recovery solution when the OST file is dealing with severe corruption issues. With the help of the tool, the healthy data from the corrupt OST can be recovered and made available by following a simple working procedure.

Based on my experience with the tool, I would like to rate it 8 on the scale of 10 (max).

About the author

VISHAL

I am Vishal Gaikar, Engineer, Web Addicted, Living in Maharastra, India. Email Me @ vishal@techbucket.org

3 Comments

Leave a Comment

CommentLuv badge