Resolving 0x80040116 - Outlook.pst can not be accessed Error in MS Outlook

  MS Outlook stores its mails and other data in PST (Personal Storage Table) format. Outlook.pst is the default name of an MS Outlook pst file. This file is prone to corruption due to virus attack, disk crash, improper shutdown or large size. It is possible that the PST file that you were able to open previously is not accessible now. In this case, an error message, "Outlook.pst can not be accessed - 0x80040116" is displayed. This particular error message is displayed when the reason behind inaccessibility is oversized PST file, or corruption of PST file index. Scanpst.exe tool may not be able to solve the problem or even detect it.

Microsoft provides a size truncation tool to reduce the size of oversized PST file. You have to first reduce the size and then repair the truncated PST file. PST Repair software can solve this issue very effectively. 


Searching PST File in Disk

Before reducing its size, search the PST file, if you don’t know its location.

To find PST files, follow the underlying steps.
  1. On the Start menu, click Search -> For Files or Folders… option.
  2. In the Search window, click Folder Options on the Tools menu.
  3. Click View tab.
  4. Click Show hidden files and folders.
  5. Deselect the Hide extensions for known file types option and Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) option. Click Yes to confirm.
  6. Click OK button.
  7. In the Search Results window, select All files and folders in the What do you want to search for? option.
  8. Type *.pst in the All or part of the file name text box.
  9. Select Local Hard Drives (C:) in Look In box.
  10. Click Search button.

All the PST files found in the selected drive are listed. If you have found the PST file, note its path or restart the search operation. By default, PST file name is Outlook.pst. After the file is found, you can run the truncation tool on it. Assume that the path of desired PST file is “C:\My Folder\Outlook.pst”.

Reducing the Size of Oversized PST File


To reduce the PST size, you have to run the pst2gb.exe tool. This executable is provided for free by Microsoft in form of a self extractor 2gb152.exe file. After downloading this tool, extract the files. Pst2gb.exe is also extracted along with other files.

To reduce the size, follow the underlying steps.
  1. Click pst2gb.exe file that was downloaded earlier.
  2. In the 2 GB PST Truncation Utility screen, click Continue button.
  3. Click Browse in the ‘Select the oversized .PST file to be recovered’ section. Type the path of the file in the Browse dialog box. Click OK.
  4. Click Create button to specify the destination where resultant PST file will be saved.
  5. Specify size to be reduced in MB unit.
  6. Click Start button.
  7. After the process is complete, click OK. Click Close.
Once the size of PST file is reduced, we have to run repair tool on it.

Repairing the Truncated PST by Scanpst.exe

  1. Double-click scanpst.exe file. It is stored in the disk when MS Office is installed.
  2. Click Browse button, and select the reduced size PST file.
  3. Click Open. In the Inbox Repair Tool dialog box, click Start.
  4. After scanning is complete, click Repair button to repair any errors present in the file.
  5. A message "Repair complete" is displayed. Click OK.
  6. Restart your computer.

After repairing, open the PST file in MS Outlook application.


If the above solution does not solve your problem, you can try PST Repair software.  This tool is compatible with all versions of MS Outlook i.e. 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2000, and all older versions.

Other Useful Post related to corruption in Outlook .pst FILE: How to Identify and Resolve the Corruption in MS Outlook?

1 comment :

  1. Thanks Rusell, I successfully resolved Outlook Unknown Error 0x80040116 problem in my Outlook 2013 application.

    ReplyDelete