Personal Folders in Outlook

[TJ]

The size of my inbox was too large and I did not want to archive old messages. A colleague idicated that creating personal folders and shifting messages there would take care of the problem without having to archive....size of inbox would be reduced and more importantly messages would still be accessible from Outlook by simply clicking on the personal folders.

So...I created personal folders and shifted old messages there. Unfortunately when I went to view the folders were empty. The .pst file is present on the system, however, so data is still present. At almost 8mb I guess the size was too large to be handled by personal folders. Can someone tell me how to move the .pst file data back into personal folders? I would like to view and work with these messages without having them impact the size of inbox. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Brian Tillman]

The size of my inbox was too large and I did not want to archive old
messages. A colleague idicated that creating personal folders and
shifting messages there would take care of the problem without having
to archive....size of inbox would be reduced and more importantly
messages would still be accessible from Outlook by simply clicking on
the personal folders.

Exactly what archiving does, only its automatic instead of manual.

So...I created personal folders and shifted old messages there.
Unfortunately when I went to view the folders were empty.

Then you did something wrong. Describe *exactly* how you created the new
personal folders and "shifted" the messages.

The .pst
file is present on the system, however, so data is still present. At
almost 8mb I guess the size was too large to be handled by personal
folders.

PSTs at a minimum can hold up to 2GB (for Outlook 2002 or earlier) and 20GB
for Outlook 2003/2007. 8MB is nothing.

Can someone tell me how to move the .pst file data back
into personal folders?

You'll have to find where they are before you can move them back or you'll
have to recover them from the backup you made before starting the
rearrangement.

 

[TJ]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for the reply....

1. As far as archiving goes I did not realize that archived messages were still present and visible in mailbox/folders. My understanding was once archived they had to be retrieved in order to view again. The reason I created personal folders was to have messages in exact same folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, etc) but located in Personal Folders Tab instead of Mailbox tab. So could still view them just as easily as I could those in Mailbox tab.

2. The way I created personal folders and shifted messages was straightforward; created second tab in outlook titled "Personal Folders"; rec-created Inbox, Sent, Drafts etc folders...then selected all messages in respective mailbox folders and cut and pasted in new folders of same name.

3. Sorry I meant to say that size of pst file was almost 8 GB; I believe my version of Outlook is 2003.

Hope the above info helps. Thank you.

 

[Brian Tillman]

1. As far as archiving goes I did not realize that archived messages
were still present and visible in mailbox/folders.

I didn't say they would be still in the original folders. I said that
they'd be "shifted" (to use your word) from the original folders to the
corresponding folders in the archive PST.

My understanding
was once archived they had to be retrieved in order to view again.

You can have the archive PST available in your mail profile so that the data
it contains is always available.

The reason I created personal folders was to have messages in exact
same folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, etc) but located in Personal
Folders Tab instead of Mailbox tab. So could still view them just as
easily as I could those in Mailbox tab.

You can do that with an Archive PST. An archive PST is no different than
any other PST, except that Outlook will move data to it automtically.

2. The way I created personal folders and shifted messages was
straightforward; created second tab in outlook titled "Personal
Folders"; rec-created Inbox, Sent, Drafts etc folders...then selected
all messages in respective mailbox folders and cut and pasted in new
folders of same name.

I like drag-and-drop, myself, but six of one is a half-dozen of the other.
What you describe, though, is essentially what autoarchive does without you
needing to perform the action.

3. Sorry I meant to say that size of pst file was almost 8 GB; I
believe my version of Outlook is 2003.

That's still less than half the size the PST can reach out-of-the-box.