'Compact Now' is not reducing after clearning the 'delete folder'

[jmar]

The folder size within Outlook for my 'Personal Folder' was in excess of
400,000 KB and my 'Archive Folder' was in excess of 500,000 KB. The disc
space on the server showed the Archive.pst file ('Archive Folder') at 533,217
KB and the Outlook.pst file ('Personal Folder') at 408,721 KB.

I deleting over 2500 messages in both the Archive and Personal folders and
emptying the 'Deleted item' folders in both the Archive and Personal folders.
The resulting file sizes within outlook are 9,158 KB for the 'Personal
Folder' and 63,690 KB for the 'Archive Folder'. After compacting the files
the Archive .pst file went down to 71,441 KB of disc space but the
Outlook.pst file does not change. The Compacting of the Archive Folder took
about 10-12 minutes but when compacting the Personal Folder it show
"Compacting...." but the message goes away after about 2 seconds. I have
tried a lot of different things multiple times without success.

Can someone help me?

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

close Outlook. count to 15. Open it again and recheck the size of the files.
I think you'll find it did reduce.

--

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

The folder size within Outlook for my 'Personal Folder' was in excess of
400,000 KB and my 'Archive Folder' was in excess of 500,000 KB. The disc
space on the server showed the Archive.pst file ('Archive Folder') at
533,217
KB and the Outlook.pst file ('Personal Folder') at 408,721 KB.

This doesn't address your problem, but you should not be keeping PSTs on
network shares. It's not supported and you risk damaging the PSTs enough to
make them unrecoverable except from a backup.

 

[jmar]

Judy,

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately I have closed and openned Outlook
multiple times since the compacting the pst file. This has been a problem
for 3 days now and I would say I've tried compacting over 8 times and have
closed and oppened Outlook over 15 times over the last 3 days and the file
size has not changed.

I have responsibility for 8 other email accounts and their disc space. All
the other accounts seem to be "Compacting" fine except for this one. The one
big difference is that this account is the largest by a factor of 2. As
mentioned before the "Archive.pst" of this account compacted fine it's just
the "Outlook.pst" file that isn't. The other accounts are set up similarly.

THanks again, any other ideas? I was thinking of creating another
"Outlook.pst" file for the email account and then copy/move the remaining
emails (still quite a few) to the new pst, remove the old pst and see if I
can then work off the new one. Does that sound like it might work as a last
resort?

Jmar

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

THanks again, any other ideas? I was thinking of creating another
"Outlook.pst" file for the email account and then copy/move the remaining
emails (still quite a few) to the new pst, remove the old pst and see if I
can then work off the new one. Does that sound like it might work as a last
resort?

This is just what I'd do and not necessarily as a last resort. Create a new
PST and make it the delivery location. Stop and restart Outlook to have
Outlook populate the new PST with the default folder set. Follow Method Two
on this page: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ansi-to-unicode.asp

 

[jmar]

Brian,

Thank you for your input and the site documentation. I created another .pst
file and move the files over and it seems to be okay now, the size has
reduced to a resonable size.

Thank you Judy for your replies as well. Until next time....

jmar