Best 5 Tips on How to Make Outlook .PST Smaller in Windows

How to Make Outlook .PST Smaller?

This article is helpful to users as it provides the useful tips to keep the PST size smaller. It helps in managing and increasing the speed and overall performance of the Microsoft Outlook. These also help users when anyone wants to reduce the size of a large PST.
If someone is using Outlook for a quite large time, then it is obvious that their PST file will be large. Heavy data files are more vulnerable to corruption and can get easily damaged. This would lead to inaccessibility of data stored in PST file. Therefore, it becomes necessary to keep the PST size smaller so that it remains in an accessible state.
For a smooth and better experience with Outlook, it is imperative to run a mail maintenance periodically.

Given below are the top five tips to Make Outlook .PST Smaller:

Tip#1: Delete Unwanted Emails From Outlook:

The first and foremost important step is to delete the unwanted Emails on a regular basis. The Emails stored in the Trash folder of Outlook are of no use. Therefore, it is necessary to keep on emptying the folder to maintain the zero count of email in the deleted item folder. This will contribute to decreasing the total size of the Outlook file. This can be done in many ways.
Some of the many solutions are given below:

Manual Methods:

• By deleting the emails Using Shift Delete command.

• On the other hand, by right-clicking on the folder to be deleted followed by the clicking on empty folder option.


Automatic Method:

• Go to file→ Options→ Advanced

• In Outlook option window, go to Outlook start and exit, checkmark on the “Empty Deleted Items folders when exiting Outlook” checkbox and then click on the OK tab to save the settings.

Tip#2: Save individual Emails:

It is always suggested to store the Outlook emails on the hard drive outside the inbox folder. Emails should be saved under different file formats.
If any files attached to that message gets saved in a temporary folder, then right-click on the attachment. Save file separately in the same folder on the system’s hard drive. However, users should be ensured that their system’s data is properly backed up.

Tip#3: Remove Duplicate Emails:

The third tip helps to keep the important emails. Delete the duplicate ones as they only consume space and increases the Outlook file size. Every time when an Email is forwarded by the user especially, the attachment consumes double space. The space is necessary for that emails on the sender’s system. This is because the copy of the emails that stored in the inbox as well as Sent folder.

Some of the many solutions to maintain PST size smaller are given below:


• The one way to do is the manual way by simply deleting the emails from the sent item folder.

• The other way in which this can be done is by sorting the emails in the Sent Items folder by the recipient. For this process, click on To header option in Sent Items folder.

• Set the Outlook not to save the forwarded emails in sent item folder: This can be done through a setting in the Mail/Save Messages section of the Outlook Option. It can access with the help of File tab.

Tip#4: Archive Emails Via Outlook:

The last tip is to archive the emails of the inbox and sent items folder. It should be done frequently through manual or by automating the process.
Generally, the latter one slows down the system if required to deal with a large amount of emails. Thus, it is always advisable to archive the emails manually to maintain the normal speed of the system. To start the process with a single folder:


STEPS:
• Go to file → cleanup tools → Archive

• Select the folder, then select “older than” date, then browse to select location and filename and click OK.

When the archiving process is completed, a new PST file gets created with all the old items archived in it. They can be accessed by:

• Outlook → file → open → open Outlook data file

Tip#5: Archive Outlook Emails to Adobe Acrobat:

This tip contributes in making the PST size smaller. This can be done by archiving Outlook emails in any version of Adobe Acrobat. Once all the emails are sorted into the subfolders under the inbox of Outlook. Then use Acrobat for creating the archive file containing all the important emails. Files can be archived using any version of the Adobe Acrobat. As a result, an easily search able archive format is formed, which can be used on any computer.

The Simplest Way to Make Outlook PST Smaller

The only limitation of the above tips is that employing these methods can be tedious if proper expertise knowledge to deal with Outlook is not present.
SysTools PST Splitter tool simplifies the task of making PST size smaller. Moreover, it easily split PST into multiple files. Since it can reduce the size of the Outlook PST efficiently and effectively, that is why it is called as one of the best tools to make PST size smaller and protect them from becoming corrupt due to file size limitation.

Conclusion

There are five manual tips given above to make Outlook .PST smaller. All the manual methods require expertise knowledge. To overcome the limitations of the above written tips, users prefer to use an automated solution. One of the many automated solutions is discussed above. This solution can easily and reliably help the users to reduce the size of the PST file.