Scanpst.exe Cannot Help Mailbox Recovery Concerns

Scanpst.exe Cannot Help Mailbox Recovery Concerns

Only a few years ago we were all used to have very limited mailbox storage. Mailbox size of 3 5 MB was the common offer out there and then Google came. Gmail offered us real software as a service and a free one. Soon afterwards young business owners asked themselves why we should install expensive and hard to manage mail systems such MS Exchange? Their solution was simple, let Google handle all of that and enjoy their free service for our business need.

Are they all aware to the risks?

Mail system is a core service for the modern business. More and more we do not relay on hard copy, faxes or snail mail. Email is easy, faster, cheaper and more ecologic than papers so there is no question about what is prefered by the young modern business man.

The problem starts when all these new in business persons do not have experience with sad events of data lost. If all files, agreements, tech and finance details are lost your customers do not care what is your mail infrastructure. They want their service, products and so; therefore business should not come to any situation of having a case of a complete lose of their crucial mailbox information.

Old days mailbox recovery; Scanpst.exe as example.

Local installed mailbox such as MS Outlook has a local database file named PST file. This file contains all the mailbox information such as contacts, emails, attachments and so on.

In a case of a failure you can run the inbox repair tool named scanpst.exe. This scanpst.exe repair tool can access your locally install database and try to fix the database structure or export the mailbox data to create a new fresh mailbox. There are also third party scanpst.exe alternatives that can do the same work as well.

The hidden point is that you have the control even in a case of a failure. Even if you cannot access you still have data there and start the recovery process right away.

No scanpst.exe for online mailboxes.

Correct, you do not store the data and therefore cannot handle the recovery process. So what is the solution? The solution is simply backup or replication.

Backup: Some of these services allow POP3 access to your online mailbox (Gmail allows) so you can run a local email client such as Outlook Express (comes free) and download all emails on a daily basis. This way you will create a local backup for all emails.

Replication: this is a similar process but in that case you crate another online mailbox (prefer another provider) and instruct it to copy all incoming emails and in your mailbox configure that all outgoing emails are sent to that address as well (if possible) and now you will have another backup option for your critical data.

Conclusion
Online mailbox allows data recovery only if you did some actions prior to the crash. If you own a private mailbox it might be sad but not as critical as the case if your mailbox is related to any business activities.

For more information about scanpst.exe and mailbox recovery please refer to scanpst.org