Outlook Profile Corrupt: How to Migrate Without Losing Sent Items History

When your Outlook profile becomes corrupt, you may see errors like “Cannot start Microsoft Outlook” or “The set of folders cannot be opened.” A corrupt profile often results from a damaged OST file or a registry key failure, and it prevents access to all mail, calendar, and contacts in that profile. This article explains how to create a new Outlook profile and migrate your data while preserving every sent item and its complete history, including delivery receipts and BCC records. You will learn a manual migration method that copies the Sent Items folder contents without using a PST export, which can skip metadata.

Why a Corrupt Profile Breaks Sent Items Access

An Outlook profile stores your email account settings, cached data, and the path to the OST file. When the OST file becomes corrupt due to a sudden shutdown, disk errors, or a large mailbox exceeding the OST size limit, Outlook cannot open any folder in that profile. The Sent Items folder is stored inside the same OST file, so it becomes inaccessible along with the Inbox and all other folders. Simply deleting the old profile and adding a new one creates a fresh OST that downloads only current server data, leaving your sent items history behind unless you manually migrate it. The migration method below works for Exchange Online, Exchange Server, IMAP, and POP3 accounts as long as the old OST file still exists on disk.

Steps to Migrate to a New Profile Without Losing Sent Items

Follow these steps in order. Do not delete the old profile until you have copied all sent items to the new profile.

1. Open the Mail control panel
   Close Outlook. Press Windows key + R, type control panel, and press Enter. Click Mail (Microsoft Outlook). If you do not see it, change the View by option to Large icons. In the Mail Setup dialog, click Show Profiles.
2. Create a new profile
   Click Add. Type a name like Outlook 2024 and click OK. Enter your email address and password. Wait for Outlook to finish setting up the account. This creates a new, empty OST file. Click Always use this profile and select your new profile name from the dropdown list. Click Apply and OK.
3. Open the new profile in Outlook
   Start Outlook. You will see a blank mailbox with only default folders. This confirms the new profile works. Keep Outlook open.
4. Open the old profile in a separate Outlook window
   Hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and double-click the Outlook icon on your desktop or taskbar. In the Choose Profile dialog, select your old profile name and click OK. A second Outlook window opens showing your old profile with all original folders, including Sent Items.
5. Copy Sent Items from the old profile
   In the old profile window, expand the folder pane. Right-click Sent Items and choose Copy Folder. In the Copy Folder dialog, expand the new profile name (the one you created in step 2). Select the top-level mailbox folder (your email address) and click OK. Outlook copies every sent item including attachments, send time, and delivery status.
6. Repeat for other custom folders
   If you created custom folders under the old profile, right-click each one and choose Copy Folder. Select the same destination in the new profile. Do not copy the Inbox, Drafts, or Deleted Items because those folders will re-sync from the server.
7. Close the old profile window
   Close the old Outlook window. In the remaining window, verify that the Sent Items folder now contains all your historical sent emails. Wait a few minutes for Outlook to sync the copied items to the server.
8. Remove the old profile (optional)
   After confirming all data is in the new profile, go back to Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles. Select the old profile and click Remove. This deletes the profile entry but does not delete the OST file. You can delete the old OST file manually from %localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook to free disk space.

If the Old Profile Cannot Open at All

If the old profile fails to open with a corrupt OST error, you can still extract Sent Items directly from the OST file using the following workaround.

1. Locate the OST file path
   Open the old profile in Outlook as far as it will go. If it opens partially, go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Select your account and click Change. Click More Settings, then the Advanced tab. Under Outlook Data File Settings, click Settings. Note the full path to the OST file. If Outlook will not open at all, search for ost in File Explorer. Sort by Date Modified to find the largest file.
2. Create a temporary profile that points to the old OST
   Close Outlook. Open Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles. Click Add and name it TempRecovery. After the account is created, close Outlook. Open Registry Editor by pressing Windows key + R, typing regedit, and pressing Enter. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\TempRecovery\9375CFF0413111d3B88A00104B2A6676. (For Outlook 2019, use 16.0; for 2016, also 16.0; for 2013, use 15.0.) Find the binary value named 001f662e. Double-click it and change the path to the old OST file location. Click OK. Close Registry Editor. Open Outlook with the TempRecovery profile. It loads the old OST data. Copy Sent Items as described in the main steps above.

Common Issues During Profile Migration

Sent Items are missing after copying

If the copied Sent Items folder appears empty in the new profile, you may have selected the wrong destination. Ensure you copied the folder into the mailbox root, not into an existing Sent Items folder. If you accidentally copied it into an existing folder, right-click the misplaced folder in the new profile, select Move, and choose the correct location.

Outlook asks for password repeatedly after switching profiles

This occurs when the new profile uses cached credentials from the old profile. Open Credential Manager by searching for it in the Start menu. Under Windows Credentials, remove any entries that start with MicrosoftOffice or Outlook. Restart Outlook and re-enter your password.

The copy operation takes hours for large Sent Items folders

Outlook copies items one at a time. If your Sent Items folder contains more than 10,000 items, the copy may take several hours. To speed it up, close all other programs and disable antivirus real-time scanning temporarily. Alternatively, use the Export to PST feature as a fallback: File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Export to a file > Outlook Data File (.pst). Select Sent Items only. Then import that PST into the new profile. Note that PST export may lose delivery receipt flags and BCC information.

Copy Folder vs PST Export: Key Differences

Item	Copy Folder Method	PST Export Method
Delivery receipt flags	Preserved exactly	May be stripped
BCC recipient information	Preserved	Lost
Send time and date	Preserved	Preserved
Attachments	Preserved	Preserved
Folder hierarchy	Preserved	Preserved
Speed for large folders	Slower	Faster
Requires old profile to open	Yes	Yes

You now have a complete method to migrate to a new Outlook profile while keeping every sent item and its full history. After migration, verify that your sent items appear in the new profile and sync correctly. Try using the Search Folders feature to create a Large Mail search folder under the new profile to quickly locate high-volume conversations. For advanced users, consider exporting the old OST to a PST using the Stellar Converter for OST tool if the Registry workaround fails.