If you’re using Microsoft Exchange Server or Office 365, all your Outlook data will be saved as a .ost file in your computer. This .ost file is a replica of data stored on the mailbox server and is mainly used to use Outlook without internet.
These .ost files get updated with data on the mail server when an internet connection is established. This is how data in the .ost file and data in the server remain in sync automatically without the user having to do anything about it.
But in certain situations, you may encounter issues with .ost files synchronizing with the mail server. In this article, let us see what you can do to repair such synchronization issues.
Solution 1: Enable Cached Mode
For .ost files to sync properly, cached mode needs to be enabled in Outlook. To enable cached mode, follow the steps below.
- Log in to Outlook and click on File > Account Settings > Account Settings
- Select your account and click Change
- Under the Offline Settings section, check the box next to Use Cached Exchange Mode
- Restart Outlook
Enabling Cached Exchange Mode should help you fix errors with syncing your .ost file. If it doesn’t help you, try syncing your .ost file manually as explained in the next step.
Solution 2: Synchronize folders manually
You can also sync your folders manually by following the steps below.
- In Outlook, Choose the folder you wish to sync
- Click on the Tools menu and select Send/Receive and select This folder to synchronize a particular folder. Click on Send/Receive All to synchronize all folders.
Solution 3: Set up automatic synchronization
You can also set up your Outlook to automatically synchronize all folders each time you are online and each time you close Outlook. To do so, follow the steps below.
- Click on Tools in the menu bar and click on Options
- Click on Mail Setup
- Go to Send/Receive section and click on the checkbox next to Send immediately when connected
- Choose Send/Receive
- In the Send/Receive Groups dialogue box that appears, select the option Perform an automatic send/receive when exiting
These solutions explained above should help you resolve synchronization errors in most cases. However, in some cases, if only one of your Outlook folders, for instance, your Inbox folder is not synchronized; chances are your .ost file may be corrupt.
In such cases, you can repair the .ost file using Remo OST to PST converter. This software converts your corrupt .ost and converts it to a PST file. Once the file is converted to PST, all Outlook attributes such as emails, contacts, calendars etc. can be recovered easily.
The software works on a read-only mechanism that helps you retain the folder structure and formatting after the conversion process. So, you don’t have to worry about changes to your original PST file.
The software works with all versions of Outlook including Outlook 2016 and all versions of Windows including Windows 10..