Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Outlook XP and earlier have a limit of 2gigabytes on the size of its PST file. However there's no warning, only problems, if you exceed that limit.
My PST has grown over 2gig, and now I can't repair it. What do I do?
•
In an earlier article, What can I do about Outlook's huge PST? I discussed how to use multiple PSTs and other techniques to manage the size of Outlook's email personal storage files, known as PST files. That article was mostly about the inconvenience of managing large files, and mentioned in passing that there's a 2 gigabyte limit to Outlook's PST.
As it turns out it is possible to create a PST that's larger than 2 gigabytes. Unfortunately that's where the trouble starts.
•
The problem manifests when you start Outlook and it complains about the PST, typically instructing you to use the Inbox Repair Tool.
Step one is to do exactly that. You can read more about the Inbox Repair Tool, called scanpst in this Microsoft Knowledgebase Article. If that tool completes successfully and the problem does not reoccur, you should examine the size of your PST and determine if some of the steps in the earlier article are called for.
If scanpst fails and the PST file is at or over 2 gigabytes (2,147,483,648 bytes) in size then you have a problem; you are going to lose some email.
Microsoft has made available an Oversized PST and OST Crop Tool. The crop tool does just that: it crops, or cuts, the size of the PST file by a specified amount to make it smaller. It makes it small enough to run scanpst on which can recover the contents of the PST. Any messages in the portion of the PST that was cut is lost.
The lesson here is to keep an eye on the size of your PST. While it would be nice if Outlook actually prevented PSTs from growing beyond the limits Outlook can handle it may not, and obviously it can result in lost messages. Make sure to have a decent backup strategy and keep an eye on your PST size.
Article C1921 - April 9, 2004 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
February 26, 2008 12:15 AM
I recently had to reformat my PC. I exported my emails from Outlook 2003. Now I am trying to import and although the file is not empty it makes no attempt to import to Outlook. I have tried the recovery sofware mentioned but it says the file is empty! I NEED the folders back with my email. Can anyone help please?
January 28, 2009 7:42 AM
I would try to import the data into a office 2003 / 2007 pst file.
Perhaps everthing will go into place and the repair will not be needed, or it will let you repair in the new unicode Format.
April 26, 2009 5:45 AM
Hi, I am facing a problem regarding Outllok pst possibly becuase of its size. The problem is that my outlook is very very slow and it hangs by computer.
My pst file property shows that its size is 4GB but when i open my outllok and check the all folder sizes, it comes to 1.3 GB (including calander, contacts). Can anyboy help me how to improve it.
regards
March 15, 2010 6:14 AM
You can not simply click and delete or drag to deleted, it does not allow that. Instead you have to select the useless email and shift-delete it. After doing this many times I was able to get below 1.5 GB. At that point outlook began to allow me to move files in the personal folder. So I created a new personal folders4 file, also on the c drive and copied about half the emails (the oldest files) to that new inbox and outbox. Then I went back to the first personal folder and clicked
File
Data file management
Select the first personal folder
Click settings
Click compact now.
Wait about 30 minutes for it to compact (hitting the mouse every 5 minutes to keep it from powersave shutdown). The new pst does not need compacting at this time.
At that point I backed up both the old and new
Pst files on the c drive. Everything seems to work OK now.
July 5, 2010 12:16 PM
05-Jul-2010