PST is Not a Personal Folders File Error - Fixed

Microsoft Outlook is the well know email application among the users to manage personal data. It provides a secure way to send or receive emails. It also works as a personal information manager due to which it is more preferred by the users. Microsoft Outlook uses PST file format to store mailbox and used as Outlook data file. It includes data items like emails, contacts, calendars, notes, etc. But as the time passes, a user starts getting some alert messages or error warnings due to which it becomes it becomes difficult to manage Outlook. It is because of mishandling or some logical conflicts in MS Outlook. All such things make Outlook start working abnormally or it stop working at all. Outlook becomes unresponsive and start displaying some kind of error messages. One of the error messages that a user might encounter is "PST is not a personal folders file".

PST is not a personal folder file

It is very much clear from the message itself that there is some problem in the Outlook data file (.pst). This PST file of Outlook stores lots of important data, which has to be taken care. However, if there is any problem occur in PST file, then it results in complete data loss of Outlook.

Reason Behind Outlook PST is Not a Personal Folders File

There can be various possible causes that result in such type of errors in Outlook and all of them are listed below:

Corrupt or damaged PST file leads to such errors in Outlook.
Crashed or improper re-installation of operating system.
Backing up PST file data, while working on Outlook.
Abnormal shutdown of system while using Microsoft Outlook.

Manual Method to Fix Corrupt PST File of Outlook

Microsoft Outlook has an inbuilt free utility named as SCANPST.EXE to scan and fix corrupt PST file of Outlook. Now, to use this tool in an appropriate manner, follow the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: First of all, you need to locate the scanpst.exe on the local machine. The location of scanpst.exe varies from version to version of Outlook

In Microsoft Outlook 2013: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15
In Microsoft Outlook 2010: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
In Microsoft Outlook 2007: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12

Step 2: After this, determine the location of Outlook PST on the local machine in order to scan & repair it. The default location of Outlook.pst file is:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

For Windows XP users, the default location is: C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

Step 3: Next, you need to execute Scanpst.exe and scan the damaged .pst file. It will display all the errors that it has found. But, in some cases it does not find any error and you are still not able to open the PST file in MS Outlook.

Limitations:

Scanpst.exe fix PST file depending on some factors such as minor level of corruption or error and if PST file does not exceed 2 GB file size limit etc. Unluckily, it does not work in most of the cases due to which a user needs to use some third-party tool and have a guaranteed solution.

Conclusion

In order to resolve PST is not a personal folders file error message, a user need a simple, effective and robust solution. One such type of professional tool is PST file recovery that a user can use without any limitation. It repair even badly damaged PST file and supported by all versions of Microsoft Outlook. Moreover, it does not require MS Outlook to fix damaged PST file.