How to Fix Error – “outlook data file access denied ost”

Lync or Skype for Business is a great addition to your messaging as it increases and improves collaboration and work flow. When you have missed and history conversations, these are saved in your Outlook Data under the Conversations History folder. With this in mind the Unified Messaging system needs access to the Outlook Data File (OST) to write and update the conversations, missed calls and other. Most of the cases this works like a charm and no particular issues occur. For the special occasions with a frustrated user or yourself having the below errors, things can be ugly.

This case in particular we are going to talk about an issue (outlook data file access denied ost error) that occurs when you have Skype for Business running stating that it fails to access the OST file or you don’t have the right permission when opening your appointments or email messages. You may get the below error saying.

C:\Users\username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\exchprofile1.ost accessed. 

Close any application that is using this file, and then try again. You might need to restart your computer

Other variants of the ‘outlook data file access denied ost’ error message could be when opening you appointments or contacts folder.

Cannot display the folder. File access is denied. You do not have the permission required to access the file

 C:\Users\username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\ exchprofile1.ost.

To add to the problem you might encounter the below message when opening a message on your mailbox.

Cannot display the item. File access is denied. You do not have the permission required to access the file

C:\Users\username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook\ exchprofile1.ost.

The first thing to try is to restart the computer in question but if the outlook permissions error still persists, you can close or kill any Skype for Business processes. Usually this will solve the problem. Thou you will encounter the issue once you re-open Skype for Business.

If the problem keeps persistent, one thing to check which maybe some people won’t notice at first is that Lync or Skype for Business could be running in compatibility mode. To check this, right-click on the shortcut of the application and click on the Compatibility tab. Make sure that the Run this program in compatibility mode for is not enabled. If this is the case, disable compatibility mode. Since we are on the same tab, you would need to check if the Run this program as an administrator is ticked or the user is specifically starting it as administrator. The application should run as the user as the ost folder permissions error could occur due to how it’s run.

At this stage and after if a further restart the problem still occurs, you might try to troubleshoot the problem by leaving the Skype for Business or Lync open but disable the Exchange integration. This is not the solution but to try it out to see the behaviour.

Once you open Lync or Skype for business, click on the gear icon to open the options. Click on Personal from the left hand side and notice the Personal information manager section.

Untick the Save IM Conversation in my email Conversation History folder and Save call logs in my email Conversation History folder. If the problem persists and you still need the integration, then we need to accept the fact that the Outlook profile configured on the machine is corrupted and we would need to re-create this. Re-creating the profile means that anything on the mailbox will be re-synchronized from scratch into a new OST file.

One thing to notice when deleting and creating a new profile is that anything which was not yet synchronized with the Exchange Server is lost. This includes emails which have been sent and where still in Outbox and any other item which was saved temporary in the OST file and was in queue to be synchronized with the server. The OST file is proprietary of Microsoft and although you have Outlook, an OST file cannot be ported or attached to another Outlook; even if it’s the same installation. So there isn’t a way to extract items directly from the OST file. In the case that you didn’t export these items before deleting the profile, there isn’t much you can do.

Luckily you can use third party OST to PST Converter applications such as Stellar Converter for OST which will make the restore easy and painless for the admin and for the user since the emails can be retrieved and nothing is lost and for the admin, it’s a minute’s work. The application can be installed on any Windows version being server or client. You can export to PST or any other format like PDF, EML, HTML and others. It is compatible with any Outlook version from 2000 till 2019. The filtering is very powerful and easy to use and the user experience is so neat and workable, the job can be done also by non-technical people. You can use it for IMAP OST file. With the Stellar Converter for OST Technician you can direcly export an OST file to a live Exchange Server or Office 365 tenant. This version also allows you to convert multiple OST files to PST.