What can I do about Outlook's huge PST?

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2 Questions:

1. After exporting my OE 6 data to Outlook 2007 - I find that there are a number of messages in SOME of the folders that are missing. I have tried to do this several times...and each time it appears that it is the same messages. I have compacted my OE data before exporting it - makes no difference. On the other hand I had no problem exporting the data from OE to WLM. Any ideas?

2. After deleting all the folders from Outlook and deleting all the files in the deleted folder - and then making sure by using Tools - empty deleted folder and then checking properties personal folders and finding that there are no messages and that all the folders are zero sized..I still have my personal folder (gem.pst) file showing that it contains 2.5 gb... and it is using that room on my disk. I need that disk space back... how do I do that. Do I just erase that file or what? I have bought a new laptop so will be using that machine for my email...so I just want to get rid of all my outlook data..so it is just not a matter of reducing the file size. Or should I just erase this file and set up a new .pst as described above? Thanks for your help

Compressing the PST is a good solution to manage huge PST files to safeguard against file corruption. Get the tool from http://www.compresspst.com to compress pst files.

One of the procedures I do to keep the PST manageable is to save and detach/delete the large attachments that people send to me.

I open the email item, select and save the attachment to a folder (in a project structure that makes sense to me) and save a copy of the email text there as well. Then I delete the attachment (graphic, ppt, docs, zip, whatever) from the email message, while letting the message itself remain in outlook.

This way, Outlook remains useful as a total history of the various project communications, but is much smaller, as it is mostly text info. And, I have the attachment on my HD when I need to use it.

I know there are some commercial products which will also do this (save off attachments) but I have not tried any of them.

The Crop tool and SCANPST tool work on oversize files. unfortunately the crop tool will lose emails

Am I correct in assuming that the Archive PST file is similarly restricted in size? If so, is there a suggestion for re-arranging and/or grouping the Archive folders to avoid problems in the future?

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