3 Common Reasons Why Outlook Keeps Running after It Has Been Closed

Sometimes, you may encounter the case that Outlook keeps running even after you’ve exited it. In this situation, your Outlook data file will be at risk. So this article will delve into this problem and offer some solutions.

It is always suggested to keep closing Outlook properly, which will protect your Outlook data. However, at times, you may find that you cannot entirely control it. Outlook tends to keep running in the background silently, which is extremely dangerous for your Outlook data. So, aiming at this issue, here we will provide some approaches to solve it.

Ensure If Outlook Is Closed Properly

First of all, you have to learn how to confirm whether Outlook has been closed entirely and properly. You can make use of Windows Task Manager.

1. At the beginning, right click on Windows Taskbar and then select “Start Task Manager” from the context menu.
2. Next in the popup “Windows Task Manager” dialog box, switch to “Processes” tab. Now on this tab, you can check if “OUTLOOK.EXE” exists or not.

Reasons Why Outlook Keeps Running after It Has Been Closed

Although you can just click “End Processes” button to hard close OUTLOOK.EXE, it isn’t recommended to do that. The operation is totally equal to closing Outlook incorrectly. In reality, to close Outlook properly, you should firstly figure out the reasons behind this issue.

Reason 1: Third Party Add-ins

One of the most common culprits is the third party add-ins, like Outlook Change Notifier, iPhone Add-in, ActiveSync, antivirus software add-ins and so on. In an instance of antivirus software add-ins, when you install antivirus software on your computer, it will be auto integrated with Outlook via adding a plugin. To keep scanning all the incoming and outgoing emails, the software will force Outlook to run even after you’ve closed it.

Solutions: To address this trouble, you should disable the third party add-ins. Go to Outlook “File” menu and select “Outlook Options”. Then switch to “Add-ins” tab, and click “Go” button. In the finally popup dialog box, you can disable add-ins as per your needs.

Reason 2: “Empty Deleted Items folder when exiting Outlook” Option

In addition, users can have Outlook clean up the deleted items every time when closing. Therefore, Outlook keeps runnning to remove items even after you’ve exited it. That is to say, it will get closed much more slowly.

Solutions: In this scenario, you should disable the option. Go to “File” menu and click “Options”. In the subsequent “Outlook Options” window, shift to “Advanced” tab, and next find and deselect “Empty Deleted Items folder when exiting Outlook” option in “Outlook start and exit” part.

Reason 3: Corrupt SRS File

Apart from the above two reasons, a corrupt SRS file (send and receive settings file) can be to blame as well, particularly if you are using Outlook 2003. The file may make damages on the sending/receiving progress of Outlook, and then Outlook keeps running to send/receive items even though you’ve exited it.

Solutions: To deal with this cause, you should firstly find it in Windows Explorer. Copy this path “%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook” into the address bar of Windows Explorer and press “Enter” to jump to the target folder. Later rename the SRS file, like adding “.old” as the suffix. The next time when you restart Outlook, Outlook will recreate the file automatically.

Deal with Errors in Outlook Files

When using Outlook, you will come across multiple errors, including the errors in PST files. In this case, you have to make use of Outlook Inbox Repair tool, namely Scanpst.exe. It can scan, find and try to fix this kind of errors. But often it will fail. At that point, you may require a more powerful third party tool, like DataNumen Outlook Repair. It can repair Outlook data error readily.

Author Introduction:

Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including repair SQL Server database and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com