Have Smaller Outlook PST Files with PSTCompactor

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.jakeludington.com/downloads/20051011_pstcompactor_home_edition.html' target='_blank'>http://www.jakeludington.com/downlo...me_edition.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Outlook is far from a perfect mail client, but it combines everything I use daily in one common location better than anything else I've tried, so I live with the shortcomings. One of the places Outlook really needs improvement is the bloated PST storage file where all that data collects. PSTCompactor helps shrink your PST file by as much as 38%, optimizing in areas where Microsoft hasn't managed to fix some glaring issues. Compress attachments, force compacting of data and permanently eliminate deleted messages and information. By keeping your PST file clean, mail data is less prone to corruption and failure. The home edition is limited to compacting 5 PST files. Compatible with Outlook 98, 2k, XP and 2003. [Windows 2k/XP $24.95]."</i><br /><br />Since the vast majority of Pocket PC and Smartphone owners use Outlook, this utility might come in handy if you have a large PST file and want to shrink it down.

[kiwi]

so this is a better utility than the built in compact routines?

Has anyone tried it?

B

[PDANEWBIE]

What good is compacting the PST? After a little use it just grows again does it not? I know the theory of DB type files wherey ou take out data it stays the samesize until you compact it but really this only works when you do large cleanup right?

Or is this compacting whats already in there and it stays compacted even with use?

[Gremmie]

Right now my PST file is a robust 250MB + 40MB archive file.

[Ploobers]

This caught my attention because I have a massive 1 GB Outlook file. Is that unnecessarily slowing my system down? Is there any benefit to archiving?

[kiwi]

make sure you archive or backup. I have had errors and have read about errors when the file gets past 2GB.

[robshobs]

I've used the built-in compact utility to manage my .PST files. I have found that the smaller the file, the better Outlook performs. I archive my main .PST file every couple of weeks. When the archive file gets to around 700MB, I'll back it up to a CD and start a new one. This occurs about every six months.

Before I get to that point, I'll go through the archive file and delete any messages I don't need. Duplicates, messages with very large files, large chain messages, etc. Then running the compact utility will reduce the file quite a bit. I keep this up until it hits the limit of a CD.

By keeping my main .PST folder small, I think that Outlook does better. When I need to search for messages, I can go to my archives. As they can have 10,000+ messages, it can take a bit to navigate.

This utility might be good if it really does compress file attachments. Supposedly, Outlook does this to a .PST file. I've never test it but I suppose I can create a new one and place a 10MB file in it. Then see what the file size is.

Rob

[Mik]

You definetly do not want to go beyond 2GB on your pst file. Depending on your outlook version, it can be hell to recover from.
Like robshobs, I use the same backup to CD methodology every quarter or so. The pain over the years is the number of CD's that I have.
I now have google desktop archive of over 100k emails which I can search instantly on my laptop. What I did was to install google desktop and put in all the pst into outlook and let google index the mails. I then took all of the pst's out (and deleted as they were eating a lot of disk space), told google not to index email anymore and it still retains the "old" index. This way, I can search for all my old emails and the index is only 800 meg or so.

No more deleting nor compacting for me, archive, index and search using Google (or blinks)

[djdj]

I downloaded and installed the trial of PST Compactor. I won't be purchasing it.

(1) It doesn't support password protected PST files
(2) It was only going to save 4 MB on a 700 MB PST file; not worth it.