Archiving in Outlook has not effect on PST file?

[rich1234]

Running XP Professional on a fast Dell, 1MB RAM

My Outlook was quite large (1.45GB) so I archived many, many folders. It's still 1.45GB. Can anyone explain that to me? Am I missing something to make Outlook smaller and more lean?

Thanks.

Rich

[net_user]

1mb ram?

anyway....this needs to be in the outlook forum ...not the xp forum...read the rules!!

[N1K]

Running XP Professional on a fast Dell, 1MB RAM

My Outlook was quite large (1.45GB) so I archived many, many folders. It's still 1.45GB. Can anyone explain that to me? Am I missing something to make Outlook smaller and more lean?

Thanks.

Rich

You made an archive but did you empty all the folders inside outlook afterwards..

[TheFlash428]

Well this is in the wrong forum, but that's another issue...

I don't know what version of Outlook you are using, or whether or not you are using an exchange server account or downloading your mail (from say POP3), but here is what it sounds like to me.

I am going to assume that your mail is being downloaded directly to a PST file. With the PST file structure, even if you move content from that file to another PST archive, the size of the file on disk will not change to reflect the loss of data. What you need to do is right-click on the PST file from the outlook folder list to bring up the properties, under the "advanced..." tab you will see an option for "compact now", which will reconcile this space for you (be warned--this can be a very lengthy process on a large PST file). also keep in mind that these instructions are for Outlook 2003, and may be diffenent on other versions.

[JRosenfeld]

For office outlook XP/2002: taken from the help file (always a good place to look :-))

Reduce the size of a data file

A data file is a Personal Folders file (.pst). If you delete items from a data file, the size of the file will not change unless you compact the file. Compacting the file might take several minutes.

On the File menu, click Data File Management.

Click the data file that you want to compact, and then click Settings.

Click Compact Now.

Note When you compact a .pst file, you do not have to exit Outlook.

[Zxian]

Moved to Microsoft Outlook.