Many years ago, Microsoft released a utility called pst19upg.exe to upgrade old versions of *.pst (Personal Folders) files so they would work with a later version. One side effect of this was that it removed the password from the pst file. So if you passworded your pst and forgot the password, you can use this utility to remove the password so you can access your email.
You need to use two utilities to remove the password:
scanpst.exe – This is installed when you install Outlook. It should be in your Office folder, under Program files- usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OfficeXX (where XX is the version number) or use Windows Search to find it.
If this method doesn’t work, you’ll need a commercial password cracker program.
This will not work on Outlook 2003′s Unicode format pst.
Tip:
Make sure you have plenty of free space available – the utilities will need approximately 3 times the size of the pst to work with.
Steps
- Close Outlook and make a copy of the PST file to work with.
- Run scanpst.exe on the copy of your pst and choose Repair, if prompted. There is no need to use the backup option in ScanPST, since you are working with a copy.
- Open a Command Prompt (Start menu, Run) and paste or type the file path to pst19up and your pst name: pst19upg.exe -x filename.pst and hit enter.
The command line will resemble
"C:\My Documents\pst19upg.exe" -x outlook.pst
This will create a copy of the pst called "filename.psx" (where filename is the same name as the original pst file). - When complete, rename the original pst file to something else, such as filename.old.
- At the command prompt, type pst19upg.exe -i filename.psx and hit enter. Remember, you need to use the full path to pst19upg.
- This creates a password-free pst file from the psx file.
- Run scanpst.exe against recovered pst and choose Repair, if prompted. As before, you don’t need to make a backup using ScanPST because you are working with the backup.
- Open the file in Outlook using the File, Open, Outlook Data file menu.
Tools
Atomic PST Password Recovery restores MS Outlook .pst file password instantly, let you see email messages, contacts and calendar stored in your Personal Folders again. | |
Kernel for Outlook PST Password Recovery is a free tool to recover forgotten password from Outlook PST files. Software takes Outlook PST file as input and does not require Outlook to be installed and configured. It supports password recovery from PST files created in MS Outlook 2010/2007/2003/XP/2000/97. | |
Mail PassView allows you to view and recover lost e-mail account passwords and other account information for Outlook and other mail clients. Freeware. Version 1.43 | |
Outlook Key is a program to gain access to password protected Personal Storage Files .PST used by MS Outlook and MS Exchange to store e-mail, contacts and other items. | |
Outlook Password allows you to recover MS Outlook PST files' passwords. These PST (Personal Storage) files may be part of your MS Outlook Profile or just independent files - whatever the case, Outlook Password will recover your password. Outlook Password can also recover e-mail accounts’ information and passwords from your local MS Outlook records. Outlook Password works with all versions of MS Outlook from 97 to Outlook 2007. Version 1.6 | |
Outlook Password Recovery recovers lost or forgotten passwords for Microsoft Outlook email accounts and PST personal folders. The program supports all versions of Microsoft Outlook, including 2003. Version 2. | |
Protected Storage PassView is a small utility that reveals the passwords stored on your computer. The passwords are revealed by reading the information from the Protected Storage. Works with Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. It does not work with Vista. Version 1.63 | |
PstPassword can recover the PST passwords of Outlook 97, Outlook 2000, Outlook XP, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007. You don't need to have Outlook installed to use this utility, you only need the original PST file that you locked with a password. Freeware. Version 1.10 | |
Recovers forgotten or lost passwords for mail accounts and also passwords for LDAP services that the Microsoft Outlook mail client uses in its work. Recovers passwords for password-protected Microsoft Outlook data files (files with the *.pst extension). | |
Outlook Password Recovery software helps in recovering the lost or forgotten password with its advanced mechanism. The password recovery software scans the locked Outlook PST file and provides a set of six different passwords for that file. Stellar Outlook password recovery software has the capacity to recover the password with special characters and also allows to save the generated password in a text file. The recovery software is easy to use and compatible with almost all the Windows operating systems like Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, 2000 and NT4 (SP6). | |
An advanced Outlook PST Repair tool which scans, repairs and restores all the components in Outlook PST file with its advanced algorithm. Stellar Phoenix Outlook pst repair software incorporates several extraordinary features such as deleted email recovery, selected items recovery, encrypted and password protected PST files recovery, repairs PST files which are larger than 2 GB etc. The demo version of the PST repair software provides the preview of the PST objects that could be recovered. Also the software efficiently works with all latest versions of Outlook like 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, 2000. |
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Last reviewed on Sep 12, 2011
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