PstPassword Recovers Lost Outlook Passwords

Windows only: When you dig up that old Outlook PST (Personal Folders) file from years ago you cleverly secured with a hard-to-guess password—and now you can’t guess it—you want PstPassword. Turns out that Outlook passwords aren’t that difficult to figure out, because this handy utility detects the PST’s on your system (or you can open one up specifically) and reveals several possible passwords that can open the file. The developer writes:

The password encryption in the PST file is very weak, and for each password-protected PST file, there are many passwords that can open it. PstPassword provides 3 different passwords for each password-protected PST file. It’s possible that one of them will be the original password that you typed, and it’s also possible that none of these passwords will be identical to the original one. However, all 3 passwords provided by PstPassword will open the PST file without problems.

Outlook isn’t even required to run PstPassword, just the PST file itself. PstPassword works with Outlook 97 through 2007 PST files. PstPassword is a free download for Windows only. What other password recovery programs have saved your bacon? Tell us about them in the comments, and I’ll round up all the useful ones in a future post.