Merging .pst files

[Bob Griendling]

Over the last couple of years I have been working from both a desktop and a
laptop computer when travelling (both running XP but with Outlook 2007 and
2003, respectively; but I'm told that shouldn't have any impact as they use
the same type of .pst file system). I have copied outlook,pst files from
one to another to ensure I'm always working with a current file.

However, during those years, I have not always understood how to manage that
process. Fortunately, I've always saved the old .pst file in case I screw
something up.

Well, I have screwed something up. My current archive.pst file has only
recent files in it. My plan was to merge all my archived messages into the
one archive.pst file, obviously so all my archived files are in the same
place.

What is the best way to do that? I've tested moving a folder from one .pst
file to another and it was a very slow process, about 15 minutes for a
folder with a couple of thousand messages in it. And I have several dozen
folders, though not with that many messages in them.

I also have two mailbox.pst files. I'm not sure what they are. Both were
created and last modified within minutes of creation five years ago.

I've read that .pst files should never be more than 2GB. Does that still
hold true for 2007?

Thanks in advance.

Bob

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Over the last couple of years I have been working from both a desktop and a
laptop computer when travelling (both running XP but with Outlook 2007 and
2003, respectively; but I'm told that shouldn't have any impact as they use
the same type of .pst file system). I have copied outlook,pst files from
one to another to ensure I'm always working with a current file.

However, during those years, I have not always understood how to manage that
process. Fortunately, I've always saved the old .pst file in case I screw
something up.

Well, I have screwed something up. My current archive.pst file has only
recent files in it. My plan was to merge all my archived messages into the
one archive.pst file, obviously so all my archived files are in the same
place.

What is the best way to do that? I've tested moving a folder from one .pst
file to another and it was a very slow process, about 15 minutes for a
folder with a couple of thousand messages in it. And I have several dozen
folders, though not with that many messages in them.

The best way is simply to open them and drag the data from one to the other.
You can also use Import, but you'll change the data that way.

I've read that .pst files should never be more than 2GB. Does that still
hold true for 2007?

The default maximum size for PSTs created by Outlook 2003 and later is 20GB,
but registry keys can increase that limit. The actual maximum is in the
terabyte range.

 

[Bob Griendling]

Thanks, Brian. But when I tried to drag a folder (~174MB) into an archives
folder (1.8GB), I get a message that tells me that it cannot move item .
"Archive folder reached its maximum size." It then tells me I should
consider using the new Outlook personal folders (,pst) introduced with
Outlook 2003 that provides greater capacity.

The files I'm trying to move probably were created when I had Outlook 2000.
But I'm way below 20GB total.

Bob

 

[Carlo Trentoni]

Hi Bob,

old PSTs (<= Outlook 2000) have a max capacity of only 2 GBytes of data.
You shouldn't go over this size limit because Outlook won't open these
PST-monsters anymore. To change the old PST-format to the new PST-format
(=> Outlook 2003) you should create an empty PST-file with the new
format and move the old mails into the new file manually (drag and
drop). Its quite a tedious job, but it works.

Carlo

 

[Bob Griendling]

Thanks, Carol. It was tedious, but it seems to have worked.

Bob

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Thanks, Brian. But when I tried to drag a folder (~174MB) into an archives
folder (1.8GB), I get a message that tells me that it cannot move item .
"Archive folder reached its maximum size." It then tells me I should
consider using the new Outlook personal folders (,pst) introduced with
Outlook 2003 that provides greater capacity.

This means that your PST was created in an earlier version of Outlook and has
a 2GB limit. You should create a new PST. Were this my problem, I'd create
the new PST and move the data in the old one to the new one. See this:
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ansi-to-unicode.asp