Outlook Email Recovery

Outlook doesn’t have a View, Source option like you’ll find in Outlook Express. It has View, Options which shows you the Internet header in a small text box. But it only includes the Internet header, not the full message source.

Using Outlook 2003 you can view the header and source together, if you edit a registry key. This works on mail obtained from Internet mail transports, not Exchange server mailboxes. However, if you access the mailbox using an Internet transport, you’ll see the full source. Open the registry editor and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
right click on the right pane and choose new DWORD:

Parameter: SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders

Value: 1

Note: This works only on new mail received after you create the registry key. You won’t be able to see the source on email messages already downloaded.

PST is a file that contains messages, attachment files, contacts and other items stored in folders. When you create a PST, you can store it on your computer’s hard disk drive or on a file server that you have access to. You can create any number of PSTs and can save, copy, and move them around just like any other file. MS Outlook uses it for storing email messages, contacts, calendar entries, tasks, journals etc.

The following example shows how to merge a PST file called Mailbox.pst with a version from a backup also named Mailbox.pst. The scenario for this type of restore could be that a new computer was brought online for a user and they started using Microsoft Exchange with a default PST before obtaining their original PST. In this example, the PSTs need to be combined with special attention given to prevent overwriting the PSTs that have the same filename.

Steps to Merge Files:
1. Make backup copies of both PST files.
2. Rename the restored version of Mailbox.pst to Mailbox1.pst.
3. Copy Mailbox1.pst to the directory that contains the working version of Mailbox.pst.
4. Add Mailbox1.pst to your active profile using steps 5 through 8.
5. From the Tools menu in the Viewer, click Options and then the Services tab.
6. In the The Following Information Services Are Set Up In This Profile dialog box, click Personal Information Store, and then click Add. In the The Following Information Services Are Set Up In This Profile box, click Personal Information Store, and then click Add.
7. In the Available Information Services box, click Mailbox1.pst and then click the OK.
8. Keep clicking the OK button until all open dialog boxes are closed. 

You should now see two Personal Folders icons on the left pane of the Microsoft Exchange client. The remaining steps outline how to move information from the old PST (Mailbox1.pst) to the current PST (Mailbox.pst). When finished, you will have your old mail merged with the current working file.