[Solved Error]-Outlook cannot open default Email Folders(xxx.pst)

You may encounter “Outlook cannot open default Email Folders” error when opening the Outlook profile. So, this tech guide describes how to fix this issue in a stepwise manner. 

While many corporate houses, academics, and home users around the world connect via Outlook, it’s an email client that can be down by mistakes. And the disturbing fact is that most of the time, this Outlook error is generally occurred by the corruption of Outlook PST files. Therefore, go down to solve this error.

Why Outlook PST Files Corrupts?

There are a number of reasons that lead to corruption of Outlook PST files. The data folder will stop working during this process and users will not be able to access their emails. Some of the main reasons for corruption of PST files are listed below:

There are various reasons by which emails cannot be accessible:

  • When a virus or malware attack takes place.
  • Due to abnormal shutdown failure of Outlook happens.
  • When large PST files are used.
  • Because of internal discrepancies, Outlook is crashing.
  • When garbage values added to the front and end of the files.

Many users met with the irritating pop-up error when opening Outlook, which states, “Outlook cannot open your default email folders” error. When such an event occurs, a user is clearly unable to do his job and is barred from accessing his mailbox instead. To solve this situation, users can find the various appropriate solutions in this guide.

Now, move towards the steps to solve “Outlook cannot open default email folders” error. There can be a manual and automated ways. You may choose any one of them that is suitable for you.

Manual Ways:

  1. Disable Outlook Compatibility Mode
  • Browse the Outlook installation folder
  • Click on Program Files -> Microsoft Office -> Office XX -> Outlook.exe
  • Then Right-click on the “Outlook.exe” file.
  • Hit on the “Properties” option and navigate the “Compatibility” tab.
  • Untick “Run this program in compatibility mode” box.
  • Hit the “Apply” option.
  1. Outlook in Safe Mode

Running Outlook in safe mode disables any add-ins you may have installed to improve the usability of the program. Faulty add-ins can often cause a lot of Outlook errors, so it’s always a good idea to try to correct this whenever a problem arises.

  • Run windows dialogue box.
  • Type outlook /safe.
  • Press Enter.

Check if the error still appears.

  1. With ScanPST.exe repair Outlook PST 2007/2010 

ScanPST.exe can be used by Microsoft’s built-in Inbox Repair Tool to repair minor damage in the PST file. Follow these steps to use this tool to solve “Outlook cannot open your default email folders 2010”

  • Browse the Outlook installation folder and locate ScanPST.exe.
  • To launch it, double-click on the application.
  • Browse in ScanPST.exe when prompted to select the damaged PST file.
  • Hit the ‘Repair’ option to start the process.

A text showing the outcome of the operation will be shown when the process is complete. If the PST is repaired, Outlook can be started without any problems. Hence “cannot open your default email folders outlook 2010 pst file” can be solved by the above steps.

Automated Way:

While there are many chances of occurrence of the error “outlook cannot open default email folders” even after applying all of the above ways, you may not be able to resolve the mistake. Don’t worry if this happens. For this and many other Outlook problems, we still have a robust and reliable solution that you can use to solve your problems. Outlook PST File Repair utility is one of the comprehensive solutions that recover and repair PST files from Outlook. You can restore your unavailable, disabled and even encrypted PST files with this PST recovery tool. This Outlook PST File Repair software is fast, precise and very reliable to recover your files. 

Final Words

Finding a suitable solution for the error “Outlook cannot open your default email folders” you face with Microsoft Outlook can be challenging, as there are many errors that can arise and negatively reflect on the performance of the user. We have described the most suitable approaches that can be useful in a case like this. It is recommended to use a specialized Outlook PST File Repair utility to prevent data loss.

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