For the security of your valuable data, password protection is necessary. But nothing can be worse than forgetting the password. This guide will come up with solutions to smoothly open password-protected PST files without having the old password.
If you want to access password-protected Outlook PST and need a quick solution for this, then time to be glad as this post will discuss a smart way to open password-protected PST files.
Protecting your important data is a must which is highly advised at personal and professional levels. In the case of MS Outlook, one can set a password to a PST file and protect its data from any unauthorized access.
Once you provide a password to your PST file, only you or the person who knows the password can open the file. Now, in the coming segments of this post, we will learn how users can open password-protected PST files and extract their data. Before this, let us understand what can happen if you lose/forget the PST file password.
What Happens If You Forgot PST File Password?
Sometimes, after setting the password to the PSTs, you may forget it and it becomes too tough for you to access the PST file without knowing the password. Moreover, Outlook does not provide any way to retrieve forgotten passwords. Forgetting the password of your file can give birth to lots of errors and won’t allow you to extract data from a protected PST file. In case, you attempt to open a password-protected PST file, this window will show on your screen.
Manual Way to Open Password-Protected PST Files
To extract data from a locked PST file, there are two manual workarounds. As per the versions of MS Outlook, we are offering these solutions.
For MS Outlook 2003 and below versions:
PST19upg.exe is a free solution provided by Microsoft to unlock password-protected PST files by upgrading them to a new version. This utility helps users to extract data from ANSI Password-protected Outlook PST. This tool will reset the PST password from protected files.
For Outlook 2007 and above versions:
You can simply remove the password from locked PST files but must have the old one.
- Run Microsoft Outlook and choose Tools – Account Settings and again Account Settings.
- Under Data Files, click Settings and pick the PST file from which you want to remove the password. Hit the Settings icon.
- This will show a new screen. Hit the Change password option. Press OK.
- In the next screen, you can input old and new passwords. Thus, the password from the PST file can be removed. Hit the OK button.
These manual workarounds seem simple however there are demerits associated with them. They consume time to recover password-protected PST files. Hence, most users trust third-party applications for instant password recovery from Outlook PST such as the most trusted Softaken PST Password Removal software to unlock or remove the password protection of your PST file and access the PST file data easily in any Outlook edition without any restrictions.
Unlock and Open Password-protected PST files using a Professional Tool
Its better to use Softaken Outlook PST Extractor Software, as it can directly and quickly extract data from password-protected PST files. This utility works with installing Microsoft Outlook and even won’t ask for the old password to unlock the PST file & extract its data. Moreover, the software is highly workable on the new Windows 11 and lower versions.
Using the given steps, one can extract password-protected PST files data:
- Install and open the software to access password-protected PST files.
- Add one or more Outlook PST from which you want to extract data.
- Preview the content of the loaded PST file.
- In Export Type, you will get various options to extract like contacts, calendars, email addresses, and attachments. Choose the required option.
- Use the given ‘Browse’ button and set a destination to save the extracted data items.
- Press the ‘Process Now’ button to commence extracting data from locked PST data files.
Excellent Features of this software are explained as:
- Securely extract password-protected PST file data without any problems.
- Offer to add one or more Outlook PST at once to extract their data.
- Successfully extract contacts, calendars, attachments, and email addresses from locked & unlocked PST files.
- Extract data from locked PST files in the absence of Microsoft Outlook.
- Offer an instant preview of the data of secured Outlook PST.
- Easy handling tool for everyone, no need for technical skills.
- Free evaluation is possible by downloading the trial edition.
- Extract data from both Unicode and ANSI PST files.
- Save the extracted data from Outlook PST at the user-specified destination.
Also read: Extract PDF Files from Outlook PST
Conclusion
Nowadays, users are struggling a lot to access & extract password-protected PST file data. Thus, through this post, we have suggested solutions to easily open password-protected Outlook PST and retrieve their data.