office 365 outlook cannot open ost file says it is in use

Read Also: Free Methods to Convert OST to PST Fileįor the older versions of Outlook, the user can opt to use the inbuilt ScanOST tool to check and integrity and health of the OST file. When Outlook starts showing ‘Microsoft Outlook not able to find OST file,’ you can use all the available methods to repair it. Manual methods to repair the corrupt OST files It can further corrupt the entire Outlook application also. If the system faces a power failure, while the OST file synchronizes the mailbox with the Exchange Server, corruption is inevitable. Now the OST file will be inaccessible and you cannot perform the basic operation like change the location of OST file, searching the mailbox data, or accessing it. If the sector of the hard drive where the OST file was saved becomes corrupt, then Outlook will not find it and show you the error. Sometimes, Outlook cannot load the file and show the error that it did not find the OST file. It is recommended to keep the size of the OST file to a manageable size, and when the OST file oversized, then Outlook will have to take more effort in loading the file. That may be the reason why the application could not find it. The OST file may have become corrupt and remain inaccessible to the Outlook application.

But there can be several reasons behind such error, and some of them are presented below:

The user may become surprised that Outlook does not show any error for the OST’s absence until the user tries to access it deliberately. Sometimes, when the Outlook user wants to access the OST file from its actual location, then he/she unable to find the existing file and gets the message that. Due to such rigidity, managing the OST file is more challenging than the PST file. Moving the PST file is relatively easy, but the OST file is more dependent on the email server.

When you have connected with the POP servers, then it makes the PST data file, and for IMAP, Exchange, and Office 365, it creates the data file in OST format. To cater to different requirements, Outlook creates different data files to keep the user mailboxes. Microsoft Outlook is a flexible email client that works on many platforms and supports a significant number of email servers.

Office 365 outlook cannot open ost file says it is in use