Lots of copies of Personal Folders

[ACP in JHB SA]

At some stage my Outlook 2003 (or maybe it was inadvertently me) has created
6 copies of Personal Folders (I now have a total of 7), all of which appear
in the folders list. Each folder appear to contain exactly the same data,
and each (if I query the folder size) is exactly 142455kB. The size of the
Outlook.PST file is 994000kB, almost exactly seven times the size of each
Personal Folder. I cannot close any of the Personal Folders - when I right
click on any of them the "Close Folder" option is not available. I created a
temporary folder, made that one the default and tried again. This time the
Personal Folders were all available, but when I tried to close them, each one
reports "The operation failed. An object could not be found."

It seems that Outlook.pst somehow is running an original Personal Folder and
six copies (new mail immediately appears in the Inbox in all folders).

I need to reduce the size of the Personal Folders, but I am having a
frustrating time trying to do so! Does anyone have any advice?

 

[DL]

probably a corrupt profile
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

 

[ACP in JHB SA]

DL, many thanks you for this. I suspected from other similar problems
featured in the discussion group that I would have to set up a new profile.
When I do that, I think I am going to have to set up my e-mail accounts
again, which is not going to be a major problem, but will I be able to keep
(i) the items currently in the inbox and outbox; (ii) my contacts list; (iii)
my address list and other less important things like my calendar? Will they
automatically be there with the new profile or will I have to bring some or
all of them into the new profile? If so, is there a "how to" URL that you
can suggest?

ACP

 

[DL]

The url I gave and its home page should have all the help you need.
Yes, you will have to create new mail accounts for the new profile.
After createing the new profile you can opt to use an existing pst or create
a new one.
You might want to run the inbox repair tool, scanpst.exe, on your current
active pst before creating anything. Assuming its error free you can connect
this to the new profile

 

[ACP in JHB SA]

After a couple of tries I have managed to get a new profile that only has one
"Personal Folders" (somehow I manged to create a new profile that came with
two Personal Folders, both undeletable), and use the old PST file. The new
profile accesses all my old e-mails and contacts but has lost the address
book, which is a bit of a bind - it had nearly one thousand addresses in it.
Mnay thanks for your help...ACP

 

[DL]

you may not have lost them
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/contactsinaddressbook.htm