how to move many subfolders at once

[Keith G Hicks]

I'm splitting up my very lage pst file. One of the folders in my "personals"
is called "Work Emails" and it has a few dozen subfolders. I'm going to
create a new pst specifically for these work emails so I don't need a folder
in it called "Work Emails" as that would be quite redundant. So I would like
to select ALL the subfolders under "Work Emails" in the peronals pst file
and drag them all at once into the new pst file (or by using the "move"
option). But I cannot for the life of me see anywhere in Outlook (version
2003 by the way) that allows you to select multiple folders at once like you
can in Windows Explorer. Is this possible somehow? And if not, once again,
how very shortsighted of MS (and is this problem corrected in later
versions?)!

Thanks,

Keith

 

[Russ Valentine]

Not possible.
Not "shortsighted."
A PST file is a proprietary database. Its folders have none of the
properties of folders in Windows Explorer and cannot be used as such. There
is no problem to correct.
Why can't you just copy the root folder in which these subfolders reside to
bring them all over at once?

 

[Keith G Hicks]

Thanks Russ for letting me know it cannot be done. Much appreciated.

Still, *IMO* it's very shortsighted and quite inconvenient.

Like I said, here's the layout:

Personal Folders:
Work Email
Customer1
Customer2
Customer3
...
...
...
...
...
...
Customer 50

So if I drag "Work Email" from personals I'd have this (like I said, a bit
redundantdant):

Work Email (root folder for the new pst file)
Work Email
Customer1
Customer2
Customer3
...
...
...
...
...
...
Customer 50

Instead, I want this:

Work Email (root folder for the new pst file)
Customer1
Customer2
Customer3
...
...
...
...
...
...
Customer 50


The way outlook is put together, I have to drag each of the 50 "Customer"
folders one at a time into the "Work Email" root to get it out of the "Work
Email" subfolder. Kind of a hassle don't you think (not to mention prone to
making mistakes)? Proprietary db asside, the "front end" can be designed to
do this. If I can write code in Outlook vba to move folders around, MS could
write the folder move feature to allow moving more than one folder at a
time. It's pretty much logical. Features get added to software by end users
asking for them. My end users ask me to add things all the time. Just about
anything Outlook does today was "impossible" 20 years ago.

 

[Russ Valentine]

I fail to see how the "redundancy" to which you refer causes a problem.
I fail to see why you need to name your new PST file the same thing as your
first subfolder.
Creating a separate PST file is rarely a necessary or even a good solution.
Why do you think you need to?
PST files have all sorts of limitations that simply cannot be overcome by
user requests.

 

[Keith G Hicks]

I do very much appreciate your help and your input but honestly, no offense,
why do you need to know why I want to do something a certain way? There are
many ways to do things. You say potaytoe I say potahtoe. No biggie.
Redundancy doesn't cause any problems, it's just not at all necessary and
pretty much annoying. If I have a pst file named for a company that I'm not
doing work for any more then it's really just an archive of that companies
correspondences. Archiving creates pst files. What's the difference? Think
of it that way. It's similar to an archive pst file but just happens to look
a little different. What's wrong with mulitiple pst files? Agian, archiving
creates multiple pst files? I often need to locate and refer back to old
emails for various reasons, so keeping that rarely used pst file readily
available is practical for me. But when I run a backup of my drive, or copy
my pst files to my laptop for travel, why would I want to copy an archive
over that's not changed in over a year? I want it there so I can refer to it
but I don't want to waste the time overwriting it. Heck, maybe I'll create a
separate pst file for each year I did work for a specific company. Haven't
you ever found that it's sometimes easier or more logical for you to use a
program in a way other than the way it was originally designed? That's how
programs evolve. I remember several years ago I was doing some work for a
big-wig at Siemens. We were just chatting away and at some point I
complained to him about some annoyance in Excel. I don't remember what it
was but it was definitely a design flaw. Well I didn't know it at the time
but apparently Siemens has a lot of clout as far as what goes into Office,
or at least they used to. He called someone up and a few minor versions
later the problem was fixed. Forgive me for saying so, and I think many
people would agree, MS doesn't know everything there is to know and cannot
possibly expect everyone to do things "their" way (take the oh-so annoying
paper clip guy for example and the more recent ribbon that so many people
detest). And apart from the specific issue in my current post dealing with
creating separate pst files, I've found many times that I've had the need to
move folders around where it would have been a LOT more convenient for me to
be able to move more than one at a time. So again, who really cares about
the "why", it's just something logical that you should be able to do.

 

[Russ Valentine]

Outlook and logic do not belong in the same sentence. My reason for trying
to understand why you want to do something is that there is a very good
chance that there is a better way to do what you want than what you have
imagined, and one that even Outlook could support.
Good luck to you.