Outlook locks up when deleting sent messages

[pwg]

I am cleaning up my sent folder. This does not happen every time so I can't
figure out if I'm doing something to cause it. I select a group of emails to
delete and hold down shift+delete to permantely delete the items (by passing
the deleted items folder). Sometimes when I do this the screen will start
flashing and Outlook will lock up. It only seems to happen when I use the
shift+delete, but not all the time. Sometimes it happens when I select a
large group to delete but has happened on only a few emails too.

Is this an Outlook error- been happening for a while? I don't get an error
message. I have to manually force it to close.

 

[K. Orland]

Are there any large attachments in the emails you're trying to delete?

 

[VanguardLH]

I am cleaning up my sent folder. This does not happen every time so I can't
figure out if I'm doing something to cause it. I select a group of emails to
delete and hold down shift+delete to permantely delete the items (by passing
the deleted items folder). Sometimes when I do this the screen will start
flashing and Outlook will lock up. It only seems to happen when I use the
shift+delete, but not all the time. Sometimes it happens when I select a
large group to delete but has happened on only a few emails too.

Is this an Outlook error- been happening for a while? I don't get an error
message. I have to manually force it to close.

Have you manually compacted your message store yet? Delete-marked items
are merely hidden, not physically removed from the database. They are
physically purged when you compact your message store.

How big is your .pst file?

 

[pwg]

There might be sometimes- but not as a rule where I can say this always
causes the lock up.

 

[pwg]

I don't know what manually compacting means- so probably not. When it locks
up I'm trying to permantely delete (shift+delete) from my sent box. I
occasionally empty my deleted folder which has other deleted items in it.

I don't know how to determine my .pst file size. Thank you for your help.

 

[VanguardLH]

I don't know what manually compacting means- so probably not. When it locks
up I'm trying to permantely delete (shift+delete) from my sent box. I
occasionally empty my deleted folder which has other deleted items in it.

I don't know how to determine my .pst file size. Thank you for your help.

As stated, delete-marked items are hidden, not removed from the
database. Permanent deletion via Shift+Del or deleting from the Deleted
Items folder marks those items with Deleted status but they physically
still exist in the database. Deleting an item hides it. Purging the
database (compaction) deletes the item from the database file.

To figure out how to manually run compaction in your unidentified
version of Outlook, hit the F1 key while in Outlook and search its help
on "compact".

When the problem crops up again, use Task Manager and check its
Processes tab to see if more than one instance of outlook.exe is
running.