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on December 15, 2025
We've presented the potential solutions in order from quickest to most time consuming. Find solutions to common problems or guide to repair Outlook problems get help from a support agent. Starting Outlook in safe mode, which starts Outlook without add-ins loaded, can tell you if an add-in is the source of the problem. Outlook may be running with settings meant for an older Windows version. You can start Outlook in safe mode, disable your add-ins, and then try to open Outlook normally. For example, the first time you try to Dismiss All on a list of reminders, Outlook asks you if you're sure you want to do that.
A corrupted profile, a damaged PST file, faulty add-ins, or improper Outlook startup settings often cause this issue. One of the first and most effective steps is to launch Outlook in Safe Mode. This mode turns off all add-ins and custom settings, helping you quickly identify if a third-party add-in is causing the startup problem. If you have reached here then we hope you got the solution as required to fix Outlook is having trouble starting.
Get Help has troubleshooters you can run for many common scenarios. If a troubleshooter is available for your issue, select Start to run that troubleshooter. Occasionally, classic Outlook tries to run a process in the background. Auto-archive, sending and receiving a very large attachment, or running some of the other mailbox tools can all be done in the background.
Maybe you've added a new program to your computer that doesn't get along with Outlook, or your system has a virus. Regardless of the specific cause, there are several key troubleshooting fixes to try that might help. If you try to delete or move a large number of messages at once, Outlook can appear to freeze, but really, it's working behind the scenes. If Outlook is performing some operation on hundreds or thousands of messages at once, it might appear to be stuck.
We can diagnose and fix several common Outlook connectivity issues for you. If our automated tool can't fix your issue, or you'd like to fix it yourself, see the next section. Then, each item in your calendar folder is checked for known problems that can cause unexpected behavior, such as meetings that seem to be missing.
We recommend setting Windows Update to automatically download and install recommended updates. Bug fixes, new features, and performance enhancements are released regularly. There are a number of possible reasons for Outlook to behave this way.
If you want to learn about printing, see Print attachments received in email messages. You might need to set Windows Update to automatically download and install recommended updates. Installing any important, recommended, and optional updates can often correct problems by replacing out-of-date files and fixing vulnerabilities. To install the latest Windows and Office updates, click the link below. Then, each item in your calendar folder is checked for known problems that can cause unexpected behavior, such as meetings that seem to be missing. After you've selected a task, you can use the details pane to do things like add more information, add steps, or mark as important.
If you don't choose an option on that dialog box, Outlook won't let you do anything else. Pressing Alt+Tab will help you switch from window to window and help you see guide to repair Outlook problems what dialog boxes might be stopping Outlook from responding. He is an expert Email Forensic, Cloud Computing, and a passionate nerd with over 10 years of experience in technical content writing. He writes about Cloud Migration, Database Recovery, Email Backup, Windows, Mac, and Tech. If you can't choose any of the menu options, type inside an email message, calendar event, or contact, Outlook may have frozen. There are three steps you can take to try to get Outlook working again.
If you need to fix an Outlook file that is corrupted for any reason, then the full version of Recovery Toolbox for Outlook will allow you to do this in a few simple steps. Outlook PST file repair occurs by copying the corrected data from the damaged .pst file to a new PST file on disk. All recovered data transfers to a new PST file with preservation of the folder structure and properties of all objects. My Outlook PST files (30+GB) were still accessible but running off a hard-drive that had started to fail with bad sectors. I was unable to clone the drive or copy the PST files to a new location.
Hitting spam traps—those sneaky addresses designed to catch spammers—or being listed on a blocklist can seriously damage your standing. Putting weeks of planning and guide to repair Outlook problems effort into an email campaign…only to have it fail to deliver. When we asked email marketers their key priorities for our annual State of Email Survey, monitoring their deliverability rates hit the top five.
The time it takes to convert OST to PST depends on your computer's performance, particularly the speed of your disk subsystem. This allows you to bypass the limitations on the RAM that can be used by each component and convert OST files of virtually any size. In other words, when you remove or modify a message, contact, reminder or meeting, the object is only marked as removed, but is not removed physically and remains in the OST file. The new version of the object is written to a guide to repair Outlook problems newly allocated space, but the old version remains in the OST file as well.