How to reduce the size of a large .pst file in Outlook 2007

With Microsoft Outlook application a user manages all of its email communication by organizing tasks, notes, calendar entries, journals, contacts, attachments etc. in an effective way. Outlook is embedded with wide range of features and that is the reason that most users are strongly depending on this application for managing their emails and schedules.

With the increased usage of Outlook, the size of PST file also gets increased due to large no. of emails with heavy attachments. If the .pst file exceeds more than its size limit then this could lead to its corruption or performance issues. So it is necessary to reduce the size of .pst file.

Methods to reduce Outlook PST file size:

There are different methods to reduce the size of .pst file in Outlook 2007. Some of these are explained as below:

A. Reduce the size of mailbox:

You can reduce the size of mailbox by deleting emails from inbox manually or archive emails in mailbox to other .pst file. You can also use Mailbox Cleanup in Outlook 2007. To use this feature go to Tools → click Mailbox Cleanup. This will show you different option to use like view mailbox size, find items that are older than a specified number of days etc.

B. Split large .pst file into multiple .pst files:

There is no inbuilt feature in Outlook 2007 to split a .pst file. But still, a large .pst file can be split by following one of these two below mentioned methods:

• Archive items to a new .pst files:

1.First select .pst file in navigation pane. Now Go To File Menu and click Archive.
2.Select the Archive this folder and all subfolders check box and select a folder from the list.
3.Select a date in the Archive items older than drop-down box.
4.Click on Browse button and specify a path, file name for the new .pst file click OK. This new .pst is displayed as Archive Folders in the Mail Folders list.

• Move items to a new .pst file: Use Move to Folder feature to move items to a new .pst file.

1.Go To File menu → New → Select Outlook Data File.
2.Click on Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) in New Outlook Data File dialog box and click OK.
3.Mention a path and name for new .pst file.
4.Specify the display name of the .pst file which is used in Mail Folder list by Outlook in Name box in the Create Microsoft Personal Folders dialog box.
5.Click more items to move in the folder which contains the items that you need to move to a new .pst file.
6.Go to Edit menu → click Move to Folder. Now click on new in the Move Items dialog box.
7.Provide a new name in the Name box for the folder in the Create New Folder dialog box.
8.Click the new .pst file under Select where to place the folder and click OK.
9.Check that new folder in the new .pst file is selected in Move Items dialog box and click OK.

All the above mentioned methods work well based on the size of Outlook pst. Additionally, deleting mails manually is a cumbersome activity when there are large numbers of emails. Archiving emails can help upto some extent in reducing the size of .pst file. However, split a .pst file into smaller .pst file effectively reduces the size of .pst file and it becomes easier to use the small Outlook .pst files.

Here I would also let you know about a utility provided by Stellar, which could solve all your problems due to increase in .pst file. This is PST file compacting; the utility runs in background based on your customize settings. It provides various options to compact your file. It also installed as an add-on to your Outlook application.