How To Repair Corrupt Outlook Profile?

This article will introduce you to 3 solutions for rebuilding Outlook profile. While solutions 1 and 2 can address minor corruption issues and solution 3 can be used to resolving severe corruption issues.

Written by Tony Landry / Updated on August 01, 2025

Outlook profile corruption can be annoying as it prevents accessing Outlook items with some error messages, such as:

  • File (Filename).pst cannot be accessed
  • Data Error (Cyclic redundancy check)
  • An unknown error has occurred: 0x80040116
  • Messaging interface has caused an unknown error.
Sometimes leaving an Outlook not responding error.

How to Repair a Corrupted Outlook Profile?

Here are the 3 viable Outlook profile repair solutions, that you can try:

How to Fix corrupt Outlook Profile?

For: Outlook 2021, 2019,2016,2013 and earlier versions

Find out the 3 most successful methods how to repair Outlook profile corruption.

1. Repair Outlook Profile using Outlook application

In Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, and 2010:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook tool and click on File tab.

outlook-open-file

2. Select Account Settings drop-down box and then, Account Settings option.

outlook-access-account-settings

3. In the Email tab, Select the corrupt Outlook profile which you want to fix and hit Repair button.

click-next-to-repair-outlook-account

4. Confirm the login details if your Outlook profile is password protected and click Next.

click-next-to-repair-outlook-account

5. After the completion of Outlook repair process, click Finish button.

This way you can repair your minor Outlook profile corruption in Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010.

In Outlook 2007:

Open Outlook application > Click on Tools > Select Account Settings > In the Email tab select Outlook account profile > Click Repair button > Now, follow the self-explanatory instructions to repair corrupt Outlook profile > Finally, restart Outlook 2007 to sync changes.

2. Repair Corrupt Outlook Profile using the scanpst.exe tool

Launched by Microsoft, ScanPST is an inbuilt tool that comes with Outlook. It is designed to repair common issues and can fix pst files with low corruption levels. You can use ScanPST to repair your corrupted Outlook profile by following the instructions below-

  • First, locate Scanpst.exe using the Windows Search bar and open it.

  • If you are unable to find Scanpst.exe, you can locate the application using the below path in your respective Outlook versions.
Outlook Version ScanPST Location

Outlook 2019

  • 32-bit Version:C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office19
  • 64-bit Version: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office19
Outlook 2016
  • 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\
  • 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\
Outlook 2013
  • 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\
  • 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\
Outlook 2010
  • 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft office\Office 14\
  • 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft office\Office 14\
Outlook 2007
  • 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft office\Office 12\
  • 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft office\Office 12\
Outlook 2003
  • 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\ Common Files\System\MSMAPI\
  • 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\
Outlook 2002 or XP 32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\
Outlook 2000 C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\locale ID\NT\scanpst.exe
Outlook 97 / Outlook 98 C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Messaging\scanpst.exe
  • Open ScanPST.exe, and select your corrupted/damaged PST file.
  • locate-scanpst-using-windows-searchbar

  • you can make use of the Browse Option to locate and select your PST file. And then Click on Start.
  • click-next-after-selecting-corrupted-pst-file

  • Select Repair.
  • click-repair-to-fix-pst-file

Limitation: ScanPST can't fix large, corrupted Outlook files ( .pst or .ost ). If it fails to repair your Outlook profile, try the next solution.

3. Fix corrupt or damaged Outlook profile using Remo Repair Outlook (PST) tool

At this point, your Outlook is heavily corrupted, and basic repair methods won’t fix the profile. Try Remo Repair Outlook PST to fix the corrupt Outlook profile in less than 5 clicks.

Remo Repair Outlook PST uses advanced scanning to fix Outlook corruption. It operates in read-only mode to protect your privacy and creates a new, healthy PST file by recovering data from the corrupted Outlook profile. You can recover deleted or lost Outlook emails and other Outlook data.

Remo Repair Outlook PST supports Outlook repair of Outlook 2021, 2019, 2016, earlier versions, and M365.

Steps to Use Remo Repair Outlook (PST) Tool:

  1. Download and Install: Install Remo Repair Outlook (PST) on your computer and choose one of these options:
    • Open Default PST File: Automatically finds your corrupted Outlook profile in its default location.
    • Select PST File Manually: Manually locate the corrupted PST file you want to repair.
    • Find All Your PST Files: Automatically detects multiple Outlook PST files, allowing you to select one to repair.

    choose-how-to-insert-corrupted-pst-file

  2. Proceed: Select the corrupted Outlook profile and click Next.
  3. select-corrupted-pst-file

  4. Scan: Choose Smart Scan to repair a severely corrupted Outlook profile.
  5. select-repair-to-fix-corrupted-pst-file

  6. Save and Repair: Click Browse to choose a save location for the repaired PST file, then click Repair.

Once the repair is complete, access the repaired PST file at the chosen location, including all Outlook data like emails, contacts, reminders, and attachments.

Watch this video to understand more on how to repair corrupt Outlook profile using Remo Outlook Repair tool
Watch this video to understand more on how to repair corrupt Outlook profile using Remo Outlook Repair tool

Frequently Asked Questions

Corrupted PST is one of the many causes of Outlook profile corruption. The profile may become unreachable owing to a corrupted PST and will need to be repaired.

Repair Profile In MS Outlook 2016/2019/2021:

  • Select File from the File option in the Outlook window.
  • Next to Account Settings, click the down-arrow icon.
  • Choose Account Settings from the drop-down menu.
  • On the Email tab, choose the Outlook profile and then click Repair.

The answer is NO. When you delete any file or folder from your Windows system. They end up in the Recycle Bin folder till the end of time. But if you have permanently deleted those files, they are gone forever. The only way to bring them back is by using a professional data recovery tool like Remo.

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