Outlook 2003 - PST file compression

[nicky77]

Hi, one of my colleagues has a problem with Outlook 2003 in that the
cannot receive any more mail with attachments, seemingly because th
PST file is sitting at 1.8GB. They already auto archive mail into a
archive PST file, which is around 18GB in size. The actual disk spac
left on the machine is only around 1GB, so performance is pretty slow
however, there is a spare D drive available with 38GB free. Does anyon
have any suggestions on a good approach for freeing up space on the PS
files (possibly by moving the current archive PST file to the D drive?)
while still having archived mail available for retrieval when necessary

 

[Roady [MVP]]

First of all, the main pst-file appears to be still in the ANSI format
instead of the Unicode format. You might want to take care of this first as
otherwise you'll might find yourself with a broken pst-file. In order to
convert see;
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/115

Second, the archive file of 18GB is also reaching its pre-programmed maximum
size of 20GB. You might want to split this in additional archive files if
there is really nothing that can be thrown out. If that is not possible, you
can opt to increase the limit;
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/99

In order to move the archive pst-file, disconnect if from Outlook first via;
File-> Data File Management...

Close Outlook and move the main pst-file and the archive pst-file to where
you want to move them. Start Outlook again and it will nag for the new
location of the main pst-file.

Once you've done that, you can reconnect the archive pst-file via;
File-> Open-> Outlook Data File...

Now you can modify the default archive path in;
Tools-> Options-> tab Other-> button AutoArchive...