subject: Resolving Access Denied Error in Outlook [print this page] An Outlook PST file is created if you use POP3 account or configure Exchange Server account to use Outlook data file as the default email delivery location. At times, you decide to buy a new computer or hard disk or perform some cleaning and reinstall of your system. In such situations, you need to backup the old Outlook emails as .pst files and restore it later. A backup is of no use if you cannot restore it as expected. If this occurs, the file might have gone corrupted due to some interruptions. It can be repaired using Outlook Inbox Repair Tool or by using a Outlook Recovery Software that can analyze a corrupted file and repair it easily. To exemplify, you can consider a scenario when you copy your Outlook .pst file to a physical disk. You reinstall the system and later try to restore the file. The operation fails and you receive an error that is similar to: Can not access outlook: Access is denied Make sure you don't try to directly copy the file to its default location, which is :Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook. This can corrupt the Outlook profile. Instead of this, you need to import the file after restoring it to a temporary location. Cause Some of the possible reasons for this behavior are: 1-You are trying to restore a read-only .pst file 2-The file you are trying to access is corrupt. This can occur if you copy the file and close Outlook unexpectedly when it is actually accessing the file Solution To overcome such issues, following solutions are recommended: 1-You should check for the sufficient read/write permissions of the file. For this, right-click the file, choose Properties and uncheck the 'Read Only' attribute 2-To repair the corrupted .pst file, you can run Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) that can fix most of the corruption issues associated with Outlook data file. If this fails, you need to use third-party Microsoft Outlook Recovery tools. Outlook Recovery Software are powerful tools that can repair and restore a damaged .pst file safely and in advanced manner, irrespective of reason.
