Tricks to Compact MS Outlook PST File

Compact Outlook PST

MS-Outlook has many impressive features like calendars, tasks, journals & user friendly interface that bound us to use MS-Outlook as an email application. The files related with MS-Outlook are PST & OST. PST file bring down the burden of data storage for user & keeps all the copies of our email, contacts, journals, task etc. Number of emails (receiving & sending) automatically increased the size of PST file & large PST file leads to corruption. That why it is always advised to compact  PST files to save it from corruption. 

Two main factors that explain the need of Compaction of PST File:

1.Performance: For connecting with others, you create & receive message along with the attachments. It increased your Mail folders size & required more time to load the message in MS-OUTLOOK. Outlook has drawback i.e increased size of PST file affects Outlook performance and makes Outlook PST file corrupt which outcomes in ample amount of data loss. So to improve the performance of MS-Outlook, you should compact your PST File.

2. File Size: Pre-defined file size of PST File is 2 GB in MS-Outlook 2000 and previous versions. When a user starts to store attachments, images, there is a need for free space to store emails .This automatically increased the PST file size as well as chances of PST File corruption & in this case, you are no longer capable to approach your data. To prevent PST file from corruption, compaction is required.

There are two methods to compact PST file :

1.  Manual Method
2. Automatic Method

Before explaining both methods user must keep following points in mind to perform compaction process. Here are points:

To perform compaction PST file, PST File must meet the following conditions:

•     File size must be of 16 KB or larger.
•     File must have at least 16 KB of free space since the last time you compacted it.

 Methods of Compaction

Automatic Background Compaction: - This can be performed on idle disk after following these conditions:-

•  User must have a running Ms-Outlook.
• User's computer must not be engaged in other CPU-intensive tasks such as copying or downloading files.

Manually Compaction for MS-Outlook 2007: -

To perform Manual Compaction in MS-Outlook 2007, follow the few simple steps:
•    Points to File menu go to option Data File Management.
•    Select Personal Folder and choose option Settings.
•    Using General tab, click Compact Now.
•    Now, Click OK and then Close. 

Manually Compaction for MS-Outlook 2010:

To perform Manual Compaction in MS-Outlook 2010, follow the few simple steps:

•    Point to File tab on the Ribbon choose Menu & click the Info tab
•    Move to option Accounts Settings and proceed
•    Click the Data Files tab and choose option Personal folder & then Settings.
•    Move to General tab and option Compact Now.
•    Now choose Click OK and then Close.

By using above steps, you can easily compact your PST file & can improve the performance of MS-Outlook.

Drawbacks of above method:

Above methods are easy to implement but are too much time consuming and not so secure. Free method will not promise user for no loss of data during PST file compaction process. Moreover using free compaction method offers risk of data loss in case of implementation of any wrong step.

Solution to overcome drawback 

Here I would suggest user to opt for third party tools. There are a lot of software vendors available that provides user Compact PST file tool. I would suggest user to opt for Stellar Phoenix Compact PST file tool because this tool is designed with all features required to compact large sized Outlook data file. Most importantly such tool offers wide-ranging options to compact PST file and promise for no data loss during PST file compaction process.