Reading corrupted PST/OST files

Reading corrupted PST/OST files

Sometimes it may not be possible to open a PST file due to some issues. One of those issues is the file corruption. If a PST file is corrupted or damaged, it may not be possible to open the file using Outlook email client. Aspose.Email provides API designed to scan a damaged PST file and read the undamaged messages within a file by their IDs.

The following methods of the PersonalStorage class are essential to cope with these tasks:

To get the list of IDs:

• find_messages(parent_entry_id) - retrieves a list of message IDs within a specified folder.

• find_subfolders(parent_entry_id) - obtains a list of subfolder IDs within the root folder.

To use these IDs to get the contents of the file:

• extract_message(entry_id) - attempts to retrieve a message.

• get_folder_by_id(entry_id) - accesses each folder.

The following code sample demonstrates how to explore and access the contents of a potentially corrupted PST file:

import aspose.email as ae

def explore_corrupted_pst(pst, root_folder_id):
    message_id_list = pst.find_messages(root_folder_id)

    for message_id in message_id_list:
        try:
            msg = pst.extract_message(message_id)
            print("- " + msg.subject)
        except Exception as e:
            print("Message reading error. Entry id: " + message_id)

    folder_id_list = pst.find_subfolders(root_folder_id)

    for sub_folder_id in folder_id_list:
        if sub_folder_id != root_folder_id:
            try:
                subfolder = pst.get_folder_by_id(sub_folder_id)
                print(subfolder.display_name)
            except Exception as e:
                print("Message reading error. Entry id: " + sub_folder_id)

            explore_corrupted_pst(pst, sub_folder_id)


pst = ae.storage.pst.PersonalStorage.from_file("target.pst")

explore_corrupted_pst(pst, pst.root_folder.entry_id_string)