When I viewed a friends outlook data file location list (in Outlook XP/2002 (Not: Outlook Express))
I was rather surprised:

There were up to 10 different *.pst files listed.

We decided to remove some of them resp. to merge them into one (or at most two of them).
I am not sure about the dependencies of these multiple *.pst files.

If there are more than one *.pst file in this list: Does that means that e.g. an eMail "xxxxxx"
is stored in only ONE of them or is a copy if this eMail stored in each of them?

Is there a way of merging all these *.pst files into one of them ?

Autoarchiving is enabled on this installation.

Martin

Hi Martin,

For personal users who do not have an Exchange Server, Outlook data is stored in Personal Folder files (*.pst). Outlook uses Personal Folder files to store Information such as
messages, contacts, calendar, etc.

If there are multiple .PST files on a machine, they can be merged into one file by either performing an import, or by opening both files and dragging and dropping folders and files from
one .PST file to the other. Please understand that the older .PST files have a storage limit of 2 GB, so if you are anywhere close to this, you should leave them alone.

Always make a backup of each file before you begin so that if the worst should happen, you can always recover.

Please refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles to learn more about backing up the Outlook data and Office program settings.

Q287070 OL2002: How to Back Up, Restore, or Move Outlook Data
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q287/0/70.asp
Note: this article is also adapted to Outlook 2003.

Regards,

Scott Atkins MCSE, MCSA
Partner Technical Lead - Outlook
Microsoft Technical Support
for Platforms and Business Applications
--------------------
From: (Martin Caldwell)
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.outlook,microsoft.public.outlook. general,microsoft.public.outlook.installation
Subject: Merging multiple personal data files possible ?
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When I viewed a friends outlook data file location list (in Outlook XP/2002 (Not: Outlook Express))
I was rather surprised:

There were up to 10 different *.pst files listed.

We decided to remove some of them resp. to merge them into one (or at most two of them).
I am not sure about the dependencies of these multiple *.pst files.

If there are more than one *.pst file in this list: Does that means that e.g. an eMail "xxxxxx"
is stored in only ONE of them or is a copy if this eMail stored in each of them?

Is there a way of merging all these *.pst files into one of them ?

Autoarchiving is enabled on this installation.

Martin