Missing folders on Mac 2011 Outlook

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I have a user that stated she had to do a rebuild of database etc but when the outlook opened up she said all of her folders were gone.

So i did a little research and found the folder called Office 2011 Identities and inside that folder is a folder called Main Identity and Main Identity backed. I need to know if i can open the folder called Main Identity backed and copy the directory called "Folder" and copy that into the Main Identity to recover those lost folders.
 

chscag

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You can try it, however, the past experience of some users have not been successful doing it that way. Does your user have a Time Machine backup? If she does, let us know and we can try to get her folders back that way.
 
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Well the only good thing is that we are using Office 365 and the user just called this morning and said the Mac crashed again. So i directed the user to check their email online and i believed she see all of her folders on cloud but i have to get confirmation from her.

However this issue with Mac 2011 is a headache so do you think the fix is to reinstall Office 2011 Mac or keep trying to rebuild this program to try to get the lost folders. Also the time machine is not an option because the last time the user did a backup was 2013
 

chscag

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If the rebuild or repair of the Outlook Data Base did not restore her folders, reinstalling Office 2011 is not going to help. Besides, removing Office 2011 is a lot of work since there is no automatic uninstall for the suite. If she can "see" all her folders in the cloud she should be able to gain access to them. And encourage her to start making backups via Time Machine.
 
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Well at this point everytime she launches Outlook 2011 for Mac it prompts her to rebuild database so i think i may have to reinstall office to correct this. The reason being because it asked her to do the rebuild a week ago so she is prob pulling her hair out by now.

I agree i will have to encourage her to do time machine back ups but right now she is knee deep in @3@ so basically i have to fix the issue and im thinking advise her to check email only on cloud for now and then i have no choice but to reinstall unless there is a better way
 

chscag

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You're probably right. Uninstalling Office 2011 is lots of work and it uninstalls everything: Word, Excel, PP, and Outlook. It does leave documents and personal templates in place but tell her to backup before she does it anyway.

Here are the MS instructions for uninstallation. Also tell her to have her product ID number on hand for reinstalling or she'll be locked out of Office. Office 2011 must be activated again when reinstalling.
 
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By the way whats the best way to uninstall and re-install Office 2011 on a Mac
 

chscag

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By the way whats the best way to uninstall and re-install Office 2011 on a Mac

There is only one way that's the "best" way. Read my previous post and have her follow the MS directions to the letter. And take special note of having her product ID serial number on hand when reinstalling.
 
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I agree with you with the only way is the best way.. It seems that the removal will take more time then the install However for the install dont I just basically copy the setup.dmg file to the desktop can click it to run or do i drag it into the application folder?
 

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It's been some time since I installed Office 2011, but if I remember correctly the installer will run directly from the CD or image file (if you purchased and downloaded it from MS). Don't drag it to the application folder. The Office 2011 installation is complex because you're not just installing Outlook, but also Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. (My copy is the three install version on CD.)
 
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Yup basically thats what i did i copied the image .dmg file to the desktop and launched it from there and it started its install. One thing that i also did was delete all the identities from the /Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity because when i attempted to do the install without removing all those files on that document you sent me it caused an error.

So when i did it the right way and followed the document and removed all those files and in addition deleted the identities it worked.

Thanks for the information it was kick azz
 

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