Compaction and Archiving of .pst files.

[Raymond W]

Hi,

I have a couple of questions on the compaction and archiving function of MS
Outlook 2003.

Compaction

1. Does the compaction function delete the mail permenantly?

2. Is the compaction function reversible?

3. I need to confirm that compaction does not affect the readibility of the
emails. i.e. we can still access the emails normally through the .pst file.
The only difference is that the .pst file is now smaller. Is this correct?

Archiving

1. Are we able to directly access the archived emails direclty from MS
Outlook?

2. I need to confirm that archiving does not delete the old emails at all
based on the default settings, but just move tthe emails to another .pst
file. Is this true?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Raymond

 

[Pat Willener]

Compacting removes empty space in the PST file, thus making the file
smaller. This works only if a sizeable percentage of the file data has
been deleted or archived. Compacting does not delete anything, or change
the data in the file. Compacting is not reversible, except by restoring
a backup PST file.

Archived email messages can be used directly from Outlook in the archive
PST file. Archiving will move data with specified criteria from the
original PST file to the archive PST file; the data will no longer be
available on the original PST file (but can be restored if necessary, by
copying individual items or folders back to the original file).

If your data (email messages, etc.) are of any value to you or your
enterprise, it is imperative that you take regular backups of all your
PST files. Backup must be performed while Outlook is not running (unless
you use the Outlook Personal Folders Backup tool).

 

[Raymond W]

Hi Pat,

Thank you for your explanation. I think I misstated my questions a little. I
am actually trying to find out if the following actions will delete a mail
permanently.

There are 3 scenarios.

1. I delete a mail, and it gets moved to the "deleted items" folder. I
perform a compaction.

2. I delete a mail, move it to the "deleted items" folder, and then proceed
to empty the "deleted items" folder.

3. I delete a mail, move it to the "deleted items" folder, and then proceed
to empty the "deleted items" folder. I then perform a compaction at this
juncture.

In the above scenarios, will I still be able to retrieve the original mail
back using the undelete software? Or are they permanently gone?

From my understand after looking through in the internet, the mail should
still in the "deleted items" folder for scenario 1. For scenario 2, undelete
software should be available to retrieve the mail.

Scenario 3 is the one which I am not too sure of, and would like to find out
more on.

Thanks.

 

[Pat Willener]

I have never tried compaction with items still in the Deleted Items
folder, but theoretically these items should still be there after
compaction.

I don't know what software could retrieve items after scenario 2,
certainly none should be in scenario 3.

If you want to be 100% sure about scenario 1, make a backup of your PST
file, then test it. Your feedback here will be appreciated

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Compacting
1) Technical answer: It purges white space in the database. This could be
data that has already been deleted from your Deleted Items folder. Meaning,
you had it deleted permanently yourself already but the bits were still
possibly there left for retrieval. Compacting will make it even more
permanent.
End-user answer: Compacting will not delete any data that is available to
you in Outlook now.

2) Nope, but backups are :-D

3) Yes.

Archiving
1) Yes; File-> Open-> Outlook Data File...
Archive are just like normal pst-files in that sense. The only difference is
is that they are filled by an automated process.

2) No, look at the settings in Tools-> Options-> tab Other-> button
AutoArchive...
By default it is set to delete expired mail items (the expiry date is a
message property which can be set by the sender).

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Scenarios
1) Email would still be in the Deleted Items folder
2) The email becomes "white space". As long as this space doesn't get
overwritten by anything else or Outlook auto-compacts the file, there are
methods to recover it or parts of it again.
3) Only when the white space that Outlook wasn't able to truncate (it needs
some white space to operate as well) didn't get overwritten by anything else
yet, (parts of) the message could still be recovered by specialized tools.
It is very unlikely that you will be able to recover something meaningful
though but theoretically the chance exists.

Is there anything special that you like to achieve for which you need to
know this? Maybe we can assist with that as well?



-----

 

[Raymond W]

Hi Roady,

I am actually studying up a bit on data forensics, hence I would like to
know the possible ways of recovering data / permenant deletion of data. I
believe my answers have been answered by Pat earlier, and now you have
reinforced it.

Thanks so much for your further explanations. It helped to clear some of my
doubts.

Raymond

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome!



-----

Hi Roady,

I am actually studying up a bit on data forensics, hence I would like to
know the possible ways of recovering data / permenant deletion of data. I
believe my answers have been answered by Pat earlier, and now you have
reinforced it.

Thanks so much for your further explanations. It helped to clear some of
my
doubts.

Raymond