How to organize contents of old PST files?

[tbartlett]

I am a non-professional homeuser of Outlook, but I've used it for
about a decade now, because I like the contacts, calendar and the
functionality. In the past I usually closed off a PST file when it
reached about 1 gig in size. By now I've accumulated several dozen
old PST files, amounting to 65 gigabytes of data; in the vast majority
of cases the folders and messages remain as they were when I used the
file. Many of the files are named for a certain period of time, some
are not. I now have a problem: I want to find some old
correspondence, but don't know a good way to search the contents of
these files. Is there some program that can do that without installing
the PST files again in Outlook? If not, then another presumably I'll
need to install these files in Outlook and somehow reorganize their
contents. That willl probvably be tedious but may yield a much more
easily accessible set of data than I have now. If I do this, what
procedures are recommended?

 

[DL]

To reorganise you will have to open the data files within Outlook
The version of Outlook being used may have a baring on performance if a
large number/size are opened
Any of the Various DeskTop Search apps will index and search the data Files,
I prefer Copernic

 

[tcbartlett]

Thanks for the tip. I'm using Outlook 2007, so I understand there's
no limit on the size of PST file. But maybe that's a theoretical
limit.

 

[DL]

You should be fine with 2007

Thanks for the tip. I'm using Outlook 2007, so I understand there's
no limit on the size of PST file. But maybe that's a theoretical
limit.