Outlook.PST File Size Mismatch

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nick Mercardante
  • Start date Start date
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Nick Mercardante

When I check the size of the file within Outlook, it is reported as 6311K.
When I check the size of the .PST file using windows explorer it is reported
as 21.3MB... I have tried Compacting but there is no change. Can someone
explain the mismatch and suggest a method for reducing the size?
 
Try compacting multiple times. Sometimes it takes more than one attempt.
 
HI Vince,
I tried what you said, I compacted 5 times, exited, restarted Outlook 207...
repeated this procedure 5 times for a total of 25 compactions, the sizes did
not change.
Nick
 
The file sizes reported by outlook do not include hidden messages -
published forms, rules, views etc so it will always be smaller. There is
other overhead that outlook doesn't report but I don't recall the typical
difference between outlook and the file system's reported sized. Your
overhead of approx 2x the messages seems a bit steep unless you have a lot
of published forms or a lot of rules and other hidden stuff. (My ost is
about 70 megs larger - 397 MG reported by outlook to 466 reported by the
file system.)

What addins do you have installed? Some 3rd party tools - like for
search/indexing will create a lot of hidden messages.










** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **
 
I just installed a new HD and did a clean install. I never willingly
installed any add-ins. I don't have any rules, published forms or other
hidden stuff that I know of. Proportionally, your difference makes more
sense than mine. Any ideas as to how I can find some of the hidden stuff, or
is there a way to export my Contacts, Calendar etc..., create a new PST
file, bring them back in then set up my email accounts (just 2)?
Thanks
Nick

Diane Poremsky {MVP} said:
The file sizes reported by outlook do not include hidden messages -
published forms, rules, views etc so it will always be smaller. There is
other overhead that outlook doesn't report but I don't recall the typical
difference between outlook and the file system's reported sized. Your
overhead of approx 2x the messages seems a bit steep unless you have a lot
of published forms or a lot of rules and other hidden stuff. (My ost is
about 70 megs larger - 397 MG reported by outlook to 466 reported by the
file system.)

What addins do you have installed? Some 3rd party tools - like for
search/indexing will create a lot of hidden messages.










** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **
Click to expand...
 
no need to export - make a new profile, open the old pst using file, open,
outlook data file then drag the stuff over.

was that pst used with older versions of outlook?

you can install outlookspy and browse the "associated contents" to see what
is hidden.
http://www.outlookspy.com/









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **


Nick Mercardante said:
I just installed a new HD and did a clean install. I never willingly
installed any add-ins. I don't have any rules, published forms or other
hidden stuff that I know of. Proportionally, your difference makes more
sense than mine. Any ideas as to how I can find some of the hidden stuff,
or is there a way to export my Contacts, Calendar etc..., create a new PST
file, bring them back in then set up my email accounts (just 2)?
Thanks
Nick
Click to expand...
 
Nick Mercardante said:
I just installed a new HD and did a clean install. I never willingly
installed any add-ins. I don't have any rules, published forms or
other hidden stuff that I know of. Proportionally, your difference
makes more sense than mine. Any ideas as to how I can find some of
the hidden stuff, or is there a way to export my Contacts, Calendar
etc..., create a new PST file, bring them back in then set up my
email accounts (just 2)?
Click to expand...

You don't have a prayer of recovering the account information, since that's
kept in the active Windows registry and because you did a clean install, you
wiped out the old registry containing that information. Re-add your mail
accounts manually by creating a mail profile in Control Panel's Mail applet
and adding the accounts.

Forget, as well, that you even know the word "import". You have an existing
PST. Make the new PST in the Mail applet, set it as your delivery location,
then add the existing PST as a second data file. Start Outlook. Now, open
each folder in the old PST, select all the items in it with Ctrl-A, and
either Ctrl-click and drag the selection or click Edit>Copy to Folder,
specifying the corresponding folder in the new PST as the destination. For
the Calendar, you'll have to switch to a table view before Ctrl-A will
select all the items.

Once you're done copying, close the old PST by right-clicking its root and
choosing Close.
 
OK Thanks Brian, I used the mail applet to create a new profile, but I have
never done this before, how do I add the original PST as a secondary file.
When I start Outlook, the new profile data file will open, then I open the
original file? You say select and ctrl-click and drag, does that mean they
will be open side by side? Thanks for all your help as you can see I am a
newbie when it comes to this...
 
open outlook then use file, open, outlook data file to open the old pst. The
folders won't be side by side -they'll be top and bottom. :) You can select
all items in a folder and use the Edit, move to folder command instead of
drag and drop if it'll be easer for you.









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **
 
Diane Poremsky {MVP} said:
open outlook then use file, open, outlook data file to open the old
pst. The folders won't be side by side -they'll be top and bottom. :)
You can select all items in a folder and use the Edit, move to folder
command instead of drag and drop if it'll be easer for you.
Click to expand...

I was suggesting Copy so that his orignal PST remains intact. The original
is working, from what I read, but the OP was puzzled by the discrepancies in
the sizes reported by various methods.
 
Thanks guys followed your suggestions and all is better... File sizes are
now 6.8 and 9.4...
Best
Nick

Diane Poremsky {MVP} said:
open outlook then use file, open, outlook data file to open the old pst.
The folders won't be side by side -they'll be top and bottom. :) You can
select all items in a folder and use the Edit, move to folder command
instead of drag and drop if it'll be easer for you.









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **
Click to expand...
 
Similar Problem:

I have a user with a 19.0 GB .OST

Outlook says his mailbox is around 1.0GB, which matches what the Exchange
server says (or thereabouts).

This is the third time this user has experienced this error. I renamed and
recreated his .OST a month ago, and once before that as well.

This is an Exchange 2003 environment. This user has Vista SP1 and Office
2007 SP1. He is set up to auto-archive every 14 days anything older than 4
months ago. The user is also using Cached Exchange Mode. He does not use RSS
feeds.

I have other users with this error as well, and so far the only solution is
to recreate the .OST.

I have read that sometimes Outlook will not actually remove allocated space
from the .OST when items are deleted. Could this be an issue? If so, any
fixes?

Thoughts?
 
Bod said:
I have a pst file with 2 folders of contacts. Other folders too, but
they're empty.
Inside Outlook, the whole folder & subfolders comes to 528 KB, but
inWindows Explorer (WE) it says it's 21 MB! What makes the
difference? How do I get the file size down? I've tried WE > file
properties > Advanced > compress, but it only gets it down to 16 MB
and turns it blue.
Click to expand...

That's not something you should be doing to a PST.
 
No? Why's that?
I've realised what I needed to do was inside Outlook, folder properties >
Advanced: Compact.
Thanks.
 
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