How to speed up Outlook 2003 (and your PC) when it’s slow
For some time my PC was ludicrously slow, and Outlook 2003 seemed to have something to do with it. Outlook would take forever to download email, and it would often crash, prompting even more delays when it decided to “Check my Personal file” because it was not closed properly. Arrghhhhh!
Not quite knowing what the problem was I decided to remove as many files from my PC’s hard disk as possible, and do a defragmentation. And that’s when I found the problem. The Windows defragmentation program was able defrag everything on my hard disk except for one file – the Outlook PST file (in my case personal.pst) which was an incredible 11 GB in size. No wonder my four-year-old computer was struggling.
The Outlook PST file basically holds all the Outlook data, that is, all the emails you get. As you can imagine, over time this can build up, and become a monstrous file.
Luckily, it’s not too difficult to cut your Outlook PST file to a reasonable size. Here’s what you need to do.
First, delete any unnecessary emails. This might sound obvious, but I for one, for example, had year of emails from WordPress installations telling me someone had commented on a blog somewhere or other. If it’s not needed, delete it. And don’t forget to empty the trash, which you can do by can do by right clicking the “Deleted Items” folder and selecting Empty “deleted Items” folder.
Second, and this was the big break through for me, archive all your older email. What this does is to transfer old emails (before a date set by you) from the Outlook PST file that you use for your daily work, and transfer it to an archive PST file (often called archive.pst). This takes a lot of pressure off Outlook. You do this by selecting File –> Archive. In my case I archived all email more than 3 months old.
Third, and this is critical, you need to compact your PST file, so that all deleted and archived emails are actually removed from the PST file. You can do this by selecting File -> Data Management
Be aware that archiving and compacting a large PST file can take some time. In my case the computer crashed when I tried compacting the PST file the first time, but I was able to get it to work by disconnecting the Internet, ensuring no other applications were running, and letting it work through the night.
Ultimately, I was able to cut the size of my personal.pst file from 11 GB to 1.6 GB.
Now, Outlook takes much less time when downloading emails, and crashes less often. As a result my computer feels much snappier, and I’ve been able to yet again delay upgrading my computer (the thought of it feels me with dread, but that’s another story).
Oh, and if you need to access emails in your archive, it’s as easy as going to File –> Open data.
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May 3rd, 2009
great tip thanks alot.
May 27th, 2009
thanks so much great post..
May 29th, 2009
Thank you great post.
May 29th, 2009
Thanks…
June 15th, 2009
good sharing,thanks
June 16th, 2009
thankyou so much
June 22nd, 2009
This is an amazing post. Thank you for sharing!
July 7th, 2009
we’ll i am no scientist, physicist etc. I am a writer, a fantasy writer. I have studied different religions and i studied some facts about multiverse theory
July 10th, 2009
merhaba
August 9th, 2009
Thank you
August 27th, 2009
Thanks…
September 4th, 2009
I hate outlook 2003…
September 5th, 2009
Thank you great post.
September 6th, 2009
Thank you
September 6th, 2009
merci
September 6th, 2009
sawol
September 7th, 2009
This is an amazing post. Thank you for sharing!
September 8th, 2009
Thanks alot for the great post guys.
September 8th, 2009
Very nice thanks.
October 26th, 2009
Thank you for sharing and articles admin
November 10th, 2009
güzellv
November 13th, 2009
thanks for all admin
information is the most beautiful treasures
November 21st, 2009
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July 19th, 2010
I hardly ever delete a message, I don’t know why but it would make me feel bad to delete a message which could contain an important information which could possibly be of use at sometime in the next 10 years or so, yes this isn’t a really good excuse, I know ;)
Anyway because of that I create new PST.files quite regularly and search them with lookeen whenever I need the information, it seems that my computer can handle 10 1GB PST.files much better than 1 10GB PST.File, hm…
March 11th, 2011
Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune. Microsoft has plans, especially in the realm of games, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet on the future if this aspect is important to you. The iPod is a much better choice in that case.
September 15th, 2011
Thanks!! I had one pst of 1 GB it was stuck badly but now it is downloading email fine.
December 3rd, 2011
Wow, amazing blog format! How lengthy have you been blogging for? you make running a blog glance easy. The whole glance of your web site is excellent, let alone the content!
December 8th, 2011
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