Massive PSTs

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tnpcguy

We are in an office that handles large emails, particularly with
attachments. If I start a new PST I can be at 2 gigs in 6 months, and
then my pst has problems and I lose emails and it's a mess. I try
creating new folders but everything still remains in the pst of course,
so that doesn't really help. It seems like archiving doesn't reduce the
size of the pst either.

We don't have exchange, but would that help at all? It might be worth
looking at if I could be sure.

Any suggestions for "Managing PST files for Dummies" resources is
welcome. Thanks.
 
We don't have exchange, but would that help at all?

An Exchange server would act as a central repository for all email,
rather than individual PST files. It's a potentially big investment,
and I guess the decision of whether to adopt it will hinge on how
critical the emails are, and how much of a loss the occasional PST
corruption causes your office.

Archiving alone will not reduce the size of the PST file; but there is
a function within the Personal Folders properties, to Compress Folders.
This will clear out space made available by deleting items, and reduce
the size of the file.

If you rely on PST files for email, I presume that the PST file gets
backed up every night? If so, then one would think that a worst-case
scenario would be the loss of a day's worth of mail for the affected
user...?
 
OL2003 using OL2003 format pst does not have the 2gb size limit.
Also, is it neccessary to save your attachments in the mail?
 
tnpcguy said:
We are in an office that handles large emails, particularly with
attachments. If I start a new PST I can be at 2 gigs in 6 months, and
then my pst has problems and I lose emails and it's a mess. I try
creating new folders but everything still remains in the pst of
course, so that doesn't really help. It seems like archiving doesn't
reduce the size of the pst either.

We don't have exchange, but would that help at all? It might be worth
looking at if I could be sure.

Any suggestions for "Managing PST files for Dummies" resources is
welcome. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Have a look at these:

http://www.addonmail.com/products/Attach2Link.asp?idFrom=2

http://www.madsolutions.com/AE/Main.htm

They are utilities which allow you to move the asttachment to a Windows
folder while keeping a link to the attachment in the email itself.

HTH
 
tnpcguy said:
We are in an office that handles large emails, particularly with
attachments. If I start a new PST I can be at 2 gigs in 6 months, and
then my pst has problems and I lose emails and it's a mess. I try
creating new folders but everything still remains in the pst of
course, so that doesn't really help. It seems like archiving doesn't
reduce the size of the pst either.
Click to expand...

Are you aware that you can have multiple PSTs open simultaneously? If you
have, say, 10 PSTs, each of which can hold 2 GB, you have an effective 20
GB. You can add to the number of PSTs as needed. Managing 5-10 folders
each in 10 PSTs is no more difficult than managing 50-100 folders in one
PST.
 
tnpcguy said:
We are in an office that handles large emails, particularly with
attachments. If I start a new PST I can be at 2 gigs in 6 months, and
then my pst has problems and I lose emails and it's a mess. I try creating
new folders but everything still remains in the pst of course, so that
doesn't really help. It seems like archiving doesn't reduce the size of
the pst either.

We don't have exchange, but would that help at all? It might be worth
looking at if I could be sure.

Any suggestions for "Managing PST files for Dummies" resources is welcome.
Thanks.
Click to expand...


And we are supposed to guess WHICH version of Outlook you are using?

In Outlook, hit the F1 key. Then read up on how to use auto-archiving.
Note that you have a global option to *enable* auto-archiving with some
defaults that you can change, but you will still have to *activate*
archiving in the properties of each folder where you want to use it. You
can even set auto-archiving in your archive file to move items to an even
older file thus providing the ability to chain together several archives
where each, say, spans a year but the chain of them span many years. It's
all up to your cleverness providing you first have the cleverness to hit F1
to read all that help provided with the program.
 
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