Does anyone know of a way to verify if a Microsoft email file (.pst) is valid or not without opening it in an email client or forensic software? essentially I would like to confirm a large batch of pst files are not corrupted but don't want to open each one individually.
Microsoft Outlook has a built in PST scanner called scanpst.exe which scans PST/OST files and corrects any detected errors. It's in the Outlook directory.
Typically you have to run it multiple times to correct all errors on corrupt files, so generally just keep running it over and over until it reports no errors. 2 -3 times is common.
Someone wrote an addon for scanpst which allows you to do batch jobs, googlefu should find it.
You may want to check out Systool's PST product
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I believe it can handle multiple PST files at once.
Looks like a handy bit of freeware, but no mention of detecting corrupt PST files.
You might make the assumption that if it works then the PST file was not corrupt, however I have seen files the scanpst.exe detects corruption on open normally with Outlook.
Still definitely worth having a look at as well if for no other reason than the stats it can report on.
Microsoft Outlook has a built in PST scanner called scanpst.exe which scans PST/OST files and corrects any detected errors. It's in the Outlook directory.
A small correction, it's not in the Outlook directory, it's in the Office<Version> directory. E.g., in Office 2013 it's in the "\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15" folder.
ScanPST is my go-to for fixing corrupted PSTs. And at no cost if you already own Office.