"Bob Griendling" wrote in message
...

Over the last couple of years I have been working from both a desktop and a
laptop computer when travelling (both running XP but with Outlook 2007 and
2003, respectively; but I'm told that shouldn't have any impact as they use
the same type of .pst file system). I have copied outlook,pst files from
one to another to ensure I'm always working with a current file.

However, during those years, I have not always understood how to manage that
process. Fortunately, I've always saved the old .pst file in case I screw
something up.

Well, I have screwed something up. My current archive.pst file has only
recent files in it. My plan was to merge all my archived messages into the
one archive.pst file, obviously so all my archived files are in the same
place.

What is the best way to do that? I've tested moving a folder from one .pst
file to another and it was a very slow process, about 15 minutes for a
folder with a couple of thousand messages in it. And I have several dozen
folders, though not with that many messages in them.

The best way is simply to open them and drag the data from one to the other.
You can also use Import, but you'll change the data that way.

I've read that .pst files should never be more than 2GB. Does that still
hold true for 2007?

The default maximum size for PSTs created by Outlook 2003 and later is 20GB,
but registry keys can increase that limit. The actual maximum is in the
terabyte range.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]