How to Compact PST File in Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 Manually

Microsoft Outlook contains every kind of data like Emails, Contacts, Calendars, Tasks, Journals, Notes or any kind of File attachments. This data is useful to the user and it keeps getting larger and larger over the time. The size of PST as well as OST data files gets increased. And this results in the consumption of a huge amount of space on our system’s hard drive. Also, the speed of Outlook becomes slower and it takes longer to respond which is something no user would want to deal with. To overcome such problems, we need to compact Outlook data file.

Why Do We Need to Compact PST File?

PST file is the database file of Microsoft Outlook (2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 & 2003). As we keep adding more and more data, there comes a point where the size of the data file goes quite large. That is the time when we feel the need to Shrink PST file. In order to compress the unused space and increase the speed by reducing the size of PST files.

Manual Methods to Compress Outlook PST File:

1. Using Auto Compact :

With a large sized PST file, the performance of Outlook gets effected, as it becomes slower. We are aware with the fact that 20% of the total size of the data file is consumed by “white space”. Now, any new items that are added, can use white spaces. And when we hard delete (delete permanently) any item, it will become a “white space”.
In the case when PST file contains more than 20% of the total size of itself, Outlook automatically compresses PST file and it all happens in the background. This whole process is known as “Auto Compact”.

2. Using “Compact Now” Feature:

MS Outlook provides us a feature “Compact Now” by which we can easily reduce the size of PST file.
This manual method is discussed here. Follow the below mentioned steps to shrink PST file:

Step 1. Open your MS Outlook.

Step 2. Goto File menu >> select Account Settings

Step 3. In Account settings, goto Data Files

Step 4. Now, select desired PST file

Step 5. Click on Settings.

Step 6. You will see another regular tag. Click on Compact Now

Step 7. Hit OK, and after that click on Close

Follow these steps and you can shrink Outlook data file.

Important Note:

• I have performed the above steps on Outlook 2016, which are also same for Outlook 2013 and 2010.
• For Outlook 2003 and 2007, there is a slight change in Step2. i.e.,
  Goto File >> then Data File Management.

Rest all the steps are same.

Limitations:

Although the Manual method to compress PST file in Outlook is easy to implement, there are some limitations of this method.

• Compact Now can reduce only upto 20% memory of the PST file. This happens in the way that when we use Compact Now, it reduces the data file by removing the white spaces only. This leads to the compaction of only 20% of the PST file.
• While running this process we can’t work on Outlook directly, as it runs on the foreground and not in the background.
• Compact now process can take a very long time to proceed and especially in the case when you have a very large sized PST file i.e., larger than 2GB.

What to do if Manual Method is Unable to Compact Outlook PST File

If manual method to decrease PST file size of Outlook (2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 & 2003) cannot reduce PST file size, there is an alternate to this solution, which is third party PST Shrink Tool. You can opt for SysTools PST Compress Tool in order to compact PST files. This tool not only compresses your data files but also provides “no loss of data” feature. It removes, shrinks and saves attachments from PST files, increasing the speed and performance of Outlook.

How to Compact PST File in Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 Manually Clark Kent 4.5 of 5

Microsoft Outlook contains every kind of data like Emails, Contacts, Calendars, Tasks, Journals, Notes or any kind of File attachments. Thi...