Is there a way to recover deleted emails from an Outlook PST file?

Question

A customer has deleted emails from his Junk Email folder, and now we have been asked to recover them from the pst data file.

Is this possible and how to go about it?

Tried using the advice at http://www.runpcrun.com/deleted-emails-outlook-pst, downloaded the Hex Editor as advised, but it immediately stopped working.

Is there another way?

This is Outlook 2007. The .pst file is a couple of GB.

Answer 1

You might need to use commercial recovery software for Junk email.

You might give a try to the trial version of Stellar Phoenix Email Recovery Software (I believe that save is disabled in the trial version).

Answer 2

Right click on the PST file and see if there's any previous versions that you can recover.

Answer 3

Right click on the PST file and see if there's any previous versions that you can recover.

I second this. See if the shadow copy service have any previous versions that might contain your deleted e-mail.

Answer 4

If you are not using it with Exchange server then you can't recover deleted emails.

However even if you are using Exchange server still there is some time period set by the administrator, in which you can get back your deleted emails.

This depends upon the retention time specified by Your Exchange administrator. Items that are deleted permanently on the server running Exchange will be there for specified time. After this time elapses, you cannot recover the deleted items.

You can recover the deleted emails by following below mentioned steps.

1. In the folder from which you have deleted the emails or Deleted items folder , Click Tools menu → Recover Deleted Items.

2. In case you are not able to see the Recover Deleted Items option then you should use an exchange account to make it visible.

3. Select the item / items to recover and click Recover Selected item. This will allow each item to get restore at its previous location from where it was removed.

Answer 5

Were you able to edit the pst file before it quit working (you should be able to use any hex editor for making the changes to the file)?. If so, have you run scanpst.exe? Also MAKE SURE to back up the pst file before you start messing with it.

Have a look at this link for more detailed instructions.

I believe scanpst.exe is usually in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12