Please help - Office outlook 2013 REFUSING to load its own .ost data file

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As stated in the title. There is a thread over here whereby with it you can change the default location of the ost file (where it's created) in office 2013 because it seems like Outlook keeps creating the ost file in the appdata folder even after moving it from under the "data files" option from the Mail option in control panel. As it happens I managed to get the default location moved but upon creation of the new mail profile. The profile defaulted to a .pst filetype rather than the .ost (offline cache) filetype. Repurcusions? Office refuses to open the .ost file which it created itself!

The error shown was that the file was configured to work with another mailbox and that it cannot load it even though the settings / credentials I put in were the exact same as the previous profile.

Please help because I really require the emails that are stored in this ost file. Things I tried include removing the registry entry which I had originally put in to revert everything to its default.

I also tried download ost to pst converters but none seem to work with the 2013 ost file format.

Gentlemen Please Help

Kind Regards
M

Posted 12-Jan-13 7:38am

The Metrophobe

Updated 15-Jan-13 6:38am

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Zamshed Farhan 14-Jan-13 21:52pm

Do you please mention here exactly what error it's showing? full error please.

The Metrophobe 15-Jan-13 12:39pm

The error was something along the lines of: It was unable to load the data file because it is configured to work with another mailbox with other settings and it is not the case because the settings I put in the profile were the exact same.

Jason Gleim 15-Jan-13 12:54pm

Where are you trying to put the new .ost file? And, why are you trying to relocate it? The .ost file is just a local copy of the Exchange data so Outlook can start up faster. Everything is on the Exchange server so even if you blow away the .ost file, nothing in the user's inbox changes.

The Metrophobe 15-Jan-13 14:16pm

Jason

I needed to relocate it onto another hard drive. Secondly I know what the .ost file is .... but my mail server is configured to remove emails once they download onto the client. In a nutshell I NEED to open that ost file and get back the local emails if you know what I mean. Outlook refuses to open it. So since it refuses to open it I lost all my local emails....

Jason Gleim 15-Jan-13 14:45pm

Is your Outlook connecting to an Exchange server or a pop/imap server? It makes a big difference.

The Metrophobe 15-Jan-13 15:30pm

it is connecting to pop smtp server ... I have web interface to check my mailbox online and everything is gone , I checked. So the only solution I have is to access this ost file.

Jason Gleim 15-Jan-13 16:31pm

Have you checked the .pst files? By default (starting with Outlook 2010) Outlook creates a pst file for pop or imap accounts and delivers the mail there. You actually have to go through a lot of hoops to get Outlook to deliver the mail into the Exchange folders/ost file and I'm not even sure you can do it without a live connection to an Exchange server. The .ost file, by default, only contains messages that really live on a server.. Exchange or Windows Live Hotmail... so Outlook considers it disposable. See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/introduction-to-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-HA010354876.aspx for information on the file types.

Have you looked in the default data file location for a pst with the same name as the server account? If you created the pop account MyPOPAcount, you would find a "mypopaccount.pst" file in the default data file location. You can load these through the open -> outlook data file menu option.

What you describe leads me to believe that you added a pop account into Outlook, it connected to the server and downloaded all the messages (default setting), and you are now trying to recover them on the client. According to my experiences, if you didn't make any explicit changes to the pop delivery method, the missing messages should be in a pst file in the default data location. I hope this is the case for you!

The Metrophobe 15-Jan-13 16:49pm

Thanks for taking time to reply. Looking in the default location was the first thing I did. Outlook 2013 created a .ost file as data file and this was verified prior to deleting my first profile. I went onto the properties of the profile and located the data files button. There it clearly stated that it was a .ost file. I went to the default folder location where there was a .ost file (I still have a copy of this file). I tried searching all of drive c for a .pst file but I did not find any either. Now the funny thing is this, when I created a second profile the outlook data file defaulted to a .pst file just as you stated. I put in the exact same settings / same mailbox / same procedure and Outlook would refuse to open the ost file it had created earlier stating that the mail settings are different and it cannot relate the ost file to the new profile! Anyways if I manage to convert this file to pst and get over and done with it I would be happy. Outlook does not want to open this file and it's pretty odd to me. Please also note that I attempted a system restore but the email was not restored ( I guess it's a safety measure)

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Please help - Office outlook 2013 REFUSING to load its own .ost data file

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Please help - Office outlook 2013 REFUSING to load its own .ost data file

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