Improve Microsoft Outlook Performance

Did you know that the larger the size of your Microsoft Outlook data file, the slower your Outlook performance is?

In this post I will give you instructions on how to improve Outlook performance by reducing the size of the main Outlook data file.

1. Learn about Outlook data file(s)

In Outlook, you Personal Folder (.pst) files live in this directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

Note: You have to enable the “Show hidden files and folder” & “Show file extensions” option to see all of the folders shown above.

By default, all of your Outlook data gets stored on one main data file…usually called outlook.pst. In your Outlook, that data file is called Personal Folder (see image below). What we will do here is move all of the old emails into a new data file.

2. Move all of your old email to a new data (.pst) file

1. Open Outlook, go to File and select Data File Management
2. Click add button
3. Select office outlook personal folders (.pst) and click OK
4. Name your new data file (I named my data file Old_Data.pst)

What this will do is create an Old Data section in your Outlook.

3. Move all of your old emails to the newly created data file

1. Select Old Data file
2. Right click and create two new folders: Inbox and Sent Items.
3. Repeating step 1 and 2 above, create different sub-folders for each year that you have past email for…ie. 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, both in Inbox and Sent Items folders
   
4. Move all of the 2006 emails from the Inbox of your Personal Folder into the Inbox of your Old Data folder. Repeat this step for all of the years that you would like to archive.
5. Move all of the 2006 emails from the Sent Items of your Personal Folder into the Sent Items of your Old Data folder. Repeat this step for all of the years that you would like to archive.

4. Compress Your Personal Folder data file

Once you delete your e-mails from the Personal Folder data file, the actual file size of the folder may remain the same. To reduce the folder size, you need to compress it:

1. Right click on Personal Folder at the top
2. Select Properties for Personal Folder
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Click on the Compact Now button

5. Enable Disable Data Files

You can create as many data files as you wish and you can enable and disable the newly created data files from view. To do that, follow the instructions below:

In Outlook, Open File -> Data File Management

You will see the pop-up box below:

I only enable the “Old Data” data file when I am looking for an old email. This method allows me to archive and have access to all of my old email without having to worry about Outlook Performance.

This is ONE way you can archive your files. You can use different methods that may work better for you. For example, you can create a new data file for for each year of your past emails instead of storing them in ONE data file, like was shown above.

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