Surplus Personal Folders

[Bagwash]

Having sorted a problem (XP SP3, Outlook 2000) I am left with three Personal
Folders in my Folder list, with different paths. Two are of old emails which
I want to retain but not in such a way that it takes up storage space (which
I believe is limited) in Outlook.
If I attempt to rename them (to something other than .pst) I am told that I
can't because the file is being used by another process - even when I have
no other programs running.
Advice appreciated.

 

[Susan]

you'll have to close Outlook to rename the files...but if you rename the
file extension, you won't be able to open them unless/until you renamd the
file extension back to pst file. And whether or not they are mounted in
your Outlook profile, they're going to take up space wherever they reside...

 

[DL]

The size limitation is for the individual set of Personal Folders and not
the combined total of the pst's
So each set of Personal Folders (pst's) has a limitation of 2gb allthough
problems can occur from 1.6gb approx
Outlook may respond more slowly if you have multiple Personal Folders open
within Outlook, simply rt click on the Personal Folders set and select
close, this removes it from Outlook but doesnt delete the pst

You dont realy want to rename the files to something other than *.pst, it
serves no purpose, if you want to rename them to 'somename'.pst and you get
that error it either means outlook is still running in the background (ie
its not closed properly) or you have a third party tool accessing the pst's,
eg a desktop search app
And renaming a pst that is still open/configured in Outlook (ie you havent
closed that pst within Outlook) will corrupt your outlook profile

 

[Bagwash]

Many thanks (both) - now understood, in particular the effect of the desktop
search.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Having sorted a problem (XP SP3, Outlook 2000) I am left with three Personal
Folders in my Folder list, with different paths. Two are of old emails which
I want to retain but not in such a way that it takes up storage space (which
I believe is limited) in Outlook.
If I attempt to rename them (to something other than .pst) I am told that I
can't because the file is being used by another process - even when I have
no other programs running.

Close them in Outlook first by right-clicking them in the Folder List and
chjoosing Close. Close Outlook and you should them be able to manipulate them
in Windows. NEVER modify a PST currently connected to Outlook.