How do I change the mail delivery location? Outlook 2003

[John Smith]

I copied Outlook.pst to a new Outlook folder on my D drive. I opened the
copy of the file in Outlook. I now wish to make it the new default mail
delivery location. I can see the path to both files in the Oulook Data
Files dialog box. The one on my C drive is set as the default mail delivery
location. How do I change the mail delivery location to the file on the D
drive?

 

[John Smith]

You're looking in the wrong (well, it's the wrong place in OL2002 so
maybe it's also true for OL2003). Instead go to Tools -> Email
Accounts. Under "View or change existing e-mail accounts", there is a
listbox named "Deliver new e-mail to the following location". That is
where you pick which message store (.pst file) to use. However, unless
you gave each message a unique and descriptive comment name, you
probably won't know which one you're picking if they all have the same
default comment. To change the comment, right-click on the root node of
a message store in the tree pane, Properties, Advanced, and change the
Name field. I don't recall if Outlook uses that value immediately so
you may have to exit and reload Outlook. Then when you pick a delivery
location, you can tell which one you are selecting by the unique Name
(comment) field that you gave that message store.

Thanks.

Yes, it appears that OL2003 uses the same procedure you described for
OL2002. I got it to work.

I did not understand what you meant by the second part of your reply
regarding default comment names.

 

[John Smith]

You can have multiple message stores open concurrently. I use
auto-archiving to move old items into anothe .pst file but I still want
to search my old mails. So I use File -> Open to open the archive .pst
file to see that message store. The default name comment for a message
store is "Personal Folders" but if you have multiple message stores all
open that have the same name/comment then how are you going to know
which one you are selecting in a drop-down listbox?

Since you said that you opened a copy of the .pst file, that meant you
had 2 message stores loaded in Outlook and each would have the same name
comment. So when you go to select which message store to use, both
would have the same name in the drop-down listbox and you wouldn't know
for sure which one you were selecting.

Thanks for the clarification regarding the use of name/comment. I have
always been frustrated with the naming convention for the personal folders.
In the past, I had tried renaming the archive folder files themselves (in
Windows Explorer) and the fact that the filenames didn't display in the
Outlook folder pane drove me nuts everytime I loaded more than one
data file in Outlook.

I am now using this feature and it makes my life so much easier. Thanks
again.