Retrieving archived items by opening PST file into Outlook

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mary
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M

Mary

I find it difficult to get the hang of all this exporting and archiving
business. However, I do archive my work e-mails periodically, after first
deleting all attachments. Tonight I decided to see how easy it would be to
retrieve some old e-mail items. In Outlook, I selected File/Open and
navigated to the file Archive.pst. This created a Folder in Outlook called
"Archived Folder" with the subfolders Inbox and Sent Items. Everything looks
OK. But I have a few questions about this archive folder I now see.

This additional folder (and subfolders) are now visible in Outlook with a
large bunch of old e-mails. How can I close it? I've tried closing and
repopening Outlook but it's still there. I'm guessing having the archive
file open is not a good thing -- it's about 70MB so it would slow Outlook
down, right?

If I delete e-mails from, or add e-mails to these Archive folder by dragging
and dropping from my Inbox, does the underlying Archive.pst change or just
the visible display in Outlook?

At the moment I have just a single archive file for work e-mails going back
two years. Is it feasible to create a new archive file every few months, or
are there any disadvantages to that? Could I also split the contents of the
existing file into two separate files by year?

I'm using Outlook 2000 on Windows XP.

Thanks.
 
Answers inline below...

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Replies sent to my e-mail address will probably not be answered --
please reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


Mary said:
I find it difficult to get the hang of all this exporting and archiving
business. However, I do archive my work e-mails periodically, after first
deleting all attachments. Tonight I decided to see how easy it would be to
retrieve some old e-mail items. In Outlook, I selected File/Open and
navigated to the file Archive.pst. This created a Folder in Outlook called
"Archived Folder" with the subfolders Inbox and Sent Items. Everything looks
OK. But I have a few questions about this archive folder I now see.

This additional folder (and subfolders) are now visible in Outlook with a
large bunch of old e-mails. How can I close it? I've tried closing and
repopening Outlook but it's still there. I'm guessing having the archive
file open is not a good thing -- it's about 70MB so it would slow Outlook
down, right?

Right-click on the root folder of the Archive file and select Close.
This will make the Archive folders disappear from your Folder List, but
the Archive.pst will still be on the hard drive for the next time you
need it.
If I delete e-mails from, or add e-mails to these Archive folder by dragging
and dropping from my Inbox, does the underlying Archive.pst change or just
the visible display in Outlook?

Archive.pst behaves just like your default .pst when it comes to drag
and drop. If you drag items out, they don't exist in the archive file
anymore (except if you copy rather than move them, of course). Same
applies in reverse to dragging items into the archive file. Basically,
all .pst files work the same way, whether they're called "archive.pst"
or "outlook.pst" or what have you.
At the moment I have just a single archive file for work e-mails going back
two years. Is it feasible to create a new archive file every few months, or
are there any disadvantages to that? Could I also split the contents of the
existing file into two separate files by year?

Sure. You can create new .pst files whenever you like and drag and drop
to them to your heart's delight, or rename old archive files so that new
ones will be created during an AutoArchive process. It's an excellent
way to keep old items sorted the way that makes the most sense to you,
and to keep each file down to a manageable size.
 
Milly and Jocelyn:

Thank you both very much for your precise answers. This is going to make my
life so much easier. I've always been fearful of archiving recent items in
case I need them. Until today, I thought that to retrieve a single item, you
had to import the complete PST and that all of the contents would be mingled
with current items creating a big mess. Often I do need to go back a month
or two to find e-mails so I've been keeping two or three months of e-mails
in my inbox. Now I'm going to become super organized.

Mary
 
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