subject: Create An Email Group In Outlook [print this page] Compacting the Personal Storage Table, (which is often called PST file) eliminates the extra space available in the PST. When you delete an item (email, draft, attachment, contact, etc.) from the Outlook's mail folder then the item is actually not deleted but marked for deletion. You cannot see the item among other items after you have deleted it but in actual the item is still available in the PST. That is why the size of PST does not reduce even after deleting emails, etc. Therefore, the PST comprises some extra space consumed by the items that are marked for deletion.
Outlook by default free up this space by compacting the PST on some regular intervals. But, sometimes when you need to store some large number of emails in PST after the deletion of some emails having large attachments, you need to free up the space for storing more emails. Here, in this article, you know the process of manually removing extra space from the PST. Undertake following steps to compact the PST in Outlook:
1. Select the Data File Management option in the File menu.
2. Select your Personal Folder.
3. Click the Settings button.
4. Select the General tab.
5. Click the Compact Now button. Outlook starts compacting the PST file.
6. Click the OK button.
7. Click the Close button.
This is how you can reduce the size of a PST file.
Compact PST files pertaining Outlook 2000 and earlier:
The procedure to manually compact the PST files in Outlook 2000 and its earlier versions in different from the versions that come after Outlook 2000. Following steps help you compact the PST file of Outlook 2000 or earlier versions:
1. Start MS Outlook 2000 or any other earlier version.
2. Select your mailbox in the left panel. If you do not see any mailbox in the left panel then select the Folder List option in the View menu.
3. Right-click the folder that you want to compact and select the Properties option.
4. Select the General tab.
5. Click the Advanced button.
6. Click the Compact Now button. MS Outlook starts compacting the selected folder. The process may take some time depending on the size of the PST file.
7. Click the OK button.
8. Click the OK button.
With the help of the steps given above, one can easily remove extra space available in the PST file.
