A fast Windows desktop tool that crawls one or more Outlook .pst and .ost files for the words and phrases you care about — searching subject, sender, recipients, and body in one pass. Reads each data file straight from disk, so no Outlook install is required.
Add several .pst / .ost files and search them all in one run — each result is
tagged with the source file it came from.
Scans subject, sender name & address, To/CC recipients, and full message body — case-insensitive, across every folder in each store.
Click any column to sort ascending or descending, plus a Hits column that ranks the strongest matches to the top of the list.
A progress bar shows how far along the search is and how much is left. The app stays responsive the whole time, and Stop ends the search.
Match on any term for a wide net, or require all terms together for precision, with an optional cap on result count.
Reads each .pst/.ost straight from disk and walks every sub-folder, so nothing buried in Archive or nested folders is missed — no Outlook profile involved.
An unreadable or corrupt PST is skipped instead of aborting the run, with the reason appended to
error.log so the rest of the batch still completes.
Read a hit inline with HTML email bodies rendered as formatted content, export the whole result set to CSV, or save any message to a text file.
Interactive preview
A static mockup of the WinForms UI rebuilt from github.com/donrowe71/pstcrawler. Click the tabs to switch between the search window and the About view.
Hi Don,
This confirms the wire transfer below has been initiated against invoice #BL-2025-1144. Funds should settle within 1–2 business days.
| Amount | $48,250.00 |
| Reference | 88241 |
| Value date | 2025-11-13 |
Please reply if the remittance detail does not match your records.
Regards,
Accounts Receivable
Brightline Partners
C# WinForms app for searching one or more Outlook .pst (or .ost)
files for words or phrases.
The project uses raw C# source files in src, built with the in-box .NET
Framework compiler from build.ps1. PST/OST reading is handled by the bundled
managed XstReader library, so Microsoft Outlook is not required.
.pst / .ost files
and search them all in one run; each result is tagged with its source file.x.xx / y.yy GB readout show how much
of the total PST data has been searched, advancing smoothly within each file.error.log next to the exe.From the latest release: run the installer
(PstCrawler-<version>-Setup.exe, per-user, no admin) or grab the
portable PstCrawler.exe + XstReader.Api.dll and run the exe.
.\PstCrawler.exeUse Add… in the PST files section to pick one or more .pst /
.ost files to search; Remove drops the selected entries.
.pst / .ost filesNo Outlook, no Office, no mail profile needed.
The app reads each .pst/.ost directly from disk via XstReader,
walks every folder recursively, and searches message subject,
sender / recipients (name, address, To, CC), and body text.
Matching is case-insensitive, with Any word / All words modes and an optional
result limit. Results are sortable (with a Hits ranking), hits render in the preview pane with
HTML email bodies shown as formatted content, and can be exported to CSV or saved to a text file.
Add several PST/OST files and search them in one pass; every column is click-sortable, with a Hits column that floats the best matches to the top and a PST file column tagging each result's source. The preview pane renders HTML email bodies as formatted content (scripts and external navigation disabled); plain text and RTF are shown as readable text. A byte-weighted progress bar tracks the run across all files, the search stays responsive on a background thread, and Stop halts cleanly after the current item.
Static reconstruction of the GUI based on the WinForms source — not a running instance. Sample PST path, search terms, and results are illustrative.