OT - Outlook Help?

W

WinstonTJ

My outlook PST (OST) file is roughly 28gb and Outlook is slowing down my machine significantly to the point that I'm having a hard time keeping my machine functional while its up.

Does anyone know of a software resource for Outlook help? Looking for a way to either break up the PST/OST files into smaller more managable sections or similar.

Thanks for any advice.

Outlook is 2003
XP Professional x86
Office Pro - 2003
Dell Optiplex 745
4gb RAM
 
28g is huge. I have emails going back to 2000 and I'm at 1 gig.

Anyway, first delete the BS items,

then delete anything with an atteachment that you don't need,

then in Outlook go to File > Archive and archive that which is no longer relevant.
 
thanks bigmrfrank - I appreciate the suggestion but I can not do those things for several reasons. First, the way my firm is set up we can not archive because it takes emails off the exchange server and onto the desktop - in the event of a HDD failure we'd lose everything we have archived.

Second - I have deleted everything, I started working at my company May 1, 2007... this is only emails for just under 2 years. I need the emails for compliance, etc. (trade tickets, confirms, reports, etc.)

Trying to break up the PST/OST files if there is a way - but without archiving and keeping all within outlook rather than an external web-based archive.

Thx!
 
There are 2 things you can do. Firstly I hope you occasionally compact the PST database - the function can be found (admittedly well hidden!) in the Data File Management tools.

More importantly, you can have as many PST files as you want. By default Outlook created one called "Personal Folders", but you can create others, and then create rules so that when emails come in, they are moved to a folder that you have set up in your other PST files.

I am not an expert but I hope this helps.
 
Thank you Swandro - that is getting me closer. Only caveat is that this is an Exchange Server based system so I have a PST on the ES and an OST file on my PC. I would ideally like to break out the PST/OST files into pieces, either by folder or by date, or some other managable combination.

I'll ask my IT guys about this (not that they will know much though) - have you had any experience actually doing this? When I have played around with multiple PST files in the past I have noticed that the additional PST files would be put under a different "Mailbox" is that true?

Thanks again!
 
I have no experience of working with server based Outlook, but I would expect your mailbox to feed your emails into an Inbox inside the PST file that has been set as the default.

You can then create your extra PST/OST databases and then use rules to make Outlook automatically transfer emails out of the Inbox and into another folder. The other folder would of course be inside another database.

For example, I could create a PST file called ET, and in it I would create a folder called ET Messages. Then I would create a rule that says: if the incoming message contains EliteTrader, move it to folder ET.

I am sure that something like this will help you, but as I say, I don't know much about the server end so that might complicate things.
 
Okay so I'm not a big fan of mircosoft, more of a firefox and google sort of guy. I have found my self needing to setup Outlook, which says it is express but seems to be anything but. I have outlook linked up to my Gmail account but when I send and receive messages I want it to read a different more professional email address. eg:

Instead of zftrader@gmail.com

I want zftrader@professionalcorp.com.

I would like all that to be done through the same gmail/imap through outlook setup
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top