Outlook Freezes When Composing a New Email or Replying

Although Outlook is a terrific application for emails and calendars in corporate environments, it does come with a few issues here and there. One such issue is that it freezes when composing a new email or replying. The main reason for this to occur is if Outlook is configured in online mode or you have a large nickname cache.

This article provides you some tips on troubleshooting the error.

  1. Configure Outlook in cached mode

Follow the steps below to configure Outlook in cached mode

  • Open Outlook and go to File menu
  • Click Account settings > Account settings
  • Select your Exchange Account and click Change
  • Click to enable the Use Cached Exchange Mode option
  • Choose a setting you prefer for Mail to keep offline
  • Click Next and then click Ok in the prompt ‘The operation you selected will not complete until you quit and restart Outlook’
  • Click Finish and then click Close
  • Exit and restart Outlook
  1. Empty the nickname cache

This removes all entries in the nickname cache. Once it is emptied, you cannot automatically restore the cache.

  • Open Outlook, go to File menu and click Options
  • Select the Mail tab
  • Click Empty Auto-Complete list
  • Click Yes to confirm and click Ok
  1. Repair PST file

Outlook freezes at times when its data file is corrupt. You may even receive errors due to corruption in PST files. Corruption can happen due to Outlook closing improperly, system crash or various other reasons. A built-in tool called Scanpst.exe is available to repair minor corruptions in your PST file.

The location of Scanpst.exe is different for each version of Outlook. So, it’s easier to find in the Search bar by typing Scanpst.exe.

Once you have found Scanpst.exe, launch the tool and click on browse to locate your corrupt PST file. Then click on Start to repair your file.

The tool can take a long time and may require you to run it multiple times before the error can be fixed. This also involves a risk of losing valuable data. Hence, it is best to use professional tools designed specifically for this purpose.

Remo Repair Outlook (PST)

Remo Repair Outlook (PST) is a great tool to repair PST files and recover all attributes. It can fix all kinds of corruption issues and oversized PST files. It can also be used to recover deleted folders in Outlook.

It uses a read-only mechanism and extracts contents of your file. Then it fixes issues and creates a healthy file. The procedure to repair a file using Remo Repair is a simple 3 step process.

How to repair PST files?

  1. From the main screen, select corrupt PST file. If you do not know the location, allow the tool to find it for you automatically.
  2. Then select from the 2 scanning options – Normal or Smart scan and select a destination folder to save the repaired file
  3. Click on Repair to begin the repair process

Once the repair is complete, you can Preview the file and check the destination folder.

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