Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe)

Upon starting Outlook I get the message that errors have been detected and that I need to run the Inbox Repair tool. Where can I find that?

The Inbox Repair Tool can be started with scanpst.exe. The location of this file is different for almost every version of Outlook and it sometimes also depends on which language of Outlook you have installed and even if you have it installed on a 32-bit version of Windows or 64-bit version of Windows. There has to be some sort of price for this level of inconsistency ;-)

You can use OutlookTools (free) to locate it for you. Below you’ll find an overview of the default locations of scanpst.exe throughout the versions of Outlook.

Outlook 2010
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14
64-bit Outlook;    C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

Outlook 2007
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12

Outlook 2003
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\<locale ID>\scanpst.exe
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\<locale ID>\scanpst.exe

Outlook 2002/XP
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\<locale ID>\scanpst.exe

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

Note 1: The <locale ID> is a number to identify your language of Office. You can find an overview of the numbers here. You need to look in the “LCID Dec” column for the correct number.

Note 2: When you connect to an Exchange server and need to check your local cache (ost-file) for errors you’ll need to run scanost.exe. You can find this in the same location as scanpst.exe except for Outlook 97/98/2000 and Outlook 2010. These versions of Outlook don’t have the scanost.exe feature. In this case, rename the ost-file to .old and Outlook will rebuild a new cache from the Exchange mailbox.

Note 3: If scanpst.exe is unable to fix your pst-file, then it is too badly corrupted. You can then try repairing or salvage recoverable items via a 3rd party recovery tool such asAdvanced Outlook Repair (for pst-files) or Advanced Exchange Recovery (for ost-files). 

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