Recover Missing Email Folders From Outlook After Removing Account

Question

A couple of days ago, my ISP migrated responsibility for email account management to a 3rd party (Greenby). Unfortunately, despite assurances that this would not affect me in any way, my Outlook stopped receiving any emails on the transferred account. Apparently Greenby had changed the server settings and I could no longer connect.

Upon contacting Greenby, I could not speak to a real person but was presented with an AI bot. This bot advised me to carry out some actions to fix, none of which actually worked. But one of the actions was to remove my email account from Outlook and re-add it. When attempting to do this I got a warning message advising me to back up the Outlook settings into a .pst file. I did this and proceeded to remove the account and re-added. This didn't fix the problem but what it did do was delete all the email folders I had set up for archiving of important emails (family / personal emails, shopping etc).

No problem, I thought, I will restore from the .pst file. However, when I import the .pst file, no missing folders appear. In the import wizard, under 'select the folder to import from' I can see the inbox, sent, deleted items etc folders, but the not the folders with archived emails.

I have searched everything I can find on the web relating to this, but cannot find a solution.

Any ideas?

PC desktop, Windows 11 Home, Outlook Classic

Answer 1

It sounds like you're experiencing issues with missing email folders after removing and re-adding your account in Outlook. When you import a .pst file, if the folders you created for archiving are not appearing, it could be due to how the folders were structured or saved in the .pst file.

Here are some steps you can try to recover your missing folders:

1. Check the .pst File: Ensure that the .pst file you are importing actually contains the archived folders. You can do this by opening the .pst file in Outlook without importing it:
   • Go to File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data File and select your .pst file. This will allow you to browse the contents of the .pst file and see if your archived folders are there.
2. Import Correctly: If you confirm that the folders are in the .pst file, try importing again:
   • Go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
   • Choose Import from another program or file and select Outlook Data File (.pst).
   • Make sure to select the correct folders when prompted during the import process.
3. Check Folder Visibility: Sometimes folders can be hidden. You can use MFCMAPI to check the properties of the folders:
   • Download and install MFCMAPI.
   • Open MFCMAPI and log in to your Outlook profile.
   • Navigate to the folders and check their properties to see if they are marked as hidden.
   • If they are hidden, you can uncheck the PR_ATTR_HIDDEN property to make them visible again.
4. Restore Missing Folder Data: If the folders are still missing after importing, you may need to restore data from a soft-deleted mailbox if applicable. This involves using PowerShell commands to retrieve the data if your account was migrated recently.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, you may want to consider reaching out to Microsoft support for further assistance, as they can provide more tailored help for your specific situation.

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References:

• Restore missing folder data after a remote move migration
• Default folder is missing in Outlook and Outlook on the web