I have gigantic pst files: A personal one which must be about 308 MB, and an
archive one of about 296 in localsett\appdata\ms\outlook which themselves
look suspiciously small. There is also an archive2.pst there which is 270
mb. It dates from May 20th.When I do a search of my hdd, I find these
files, as well as Outlook. and archive.pst files at 3-700mb, dated May 20th
2006 which don't seem to delete from the recycle bin?

Or are the ones in the recycle bin probably uncompacted with lots of free
space in them and I shouldn't really worry about them?.

There is also an up to date archive file of about 2-300 mb (which also looks
suspiciously small) in D:\ as well as a mysterious archive2.pst in the same
root of D which is only a megabyte and which presumably can't contain
anything at all.

In my outlook file tree, there are two personal files with (for example)
differing dates of emails in each, I have no idea why.

Do I need to consolidate them into two files and if so, what is the best
method for doing this? And should I find some way of consolidating the ones
in my recycle bin? Should I (can I) restore them and copy whatever is in
them without overwriting so as not to overwrite anything in a new bit with
something which dates back to last May?

They are in the recycle bin because someone deleted them.
You can restore them, but you should ensure the process does not overwrite
any existing ones.
As for how all this happened, it would seem as a result of someone fiddling
around.
You should perhaps open all the pst's within OL then examine the contents
and drag stuff to the ones you wish to keep, and close/delete the redundent
ones. Then ensure your mail is delevered to the correct pst, and that your
archive settings point to the correct archive.

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...
I have gigantic pst files: A personal one which must be about 308 MB, and
an
archive one of about 296 in localsett\appdata\ms\outlook which themselves
look suspiciously small. There is also an archive2.pst there which is 270
mb. It dates from May 20th.When I do a search of my hdd, I find these
files, as well as Outlook. and archive.pst files at 3-700mb, dated May
20th
2006 which don't seem to delete from the recycle bin?

Or are the ones in the recycle bin probably uncompacted with lots of free
space in them and I shouldn't really worry about them?.

There is also an up to date archive file of about 2-300 mb (which also
looks
suspiciously small) in D:\ as well as a mysterious archive2.pst in the
same
root of D which is only a megabyte and which presumably can't contain
anything at all.

In my outlook file tree, there are two personal files with (for example)
differing dates of emails in each, I have no idea why.

Do I need to consolidate them into two files and if so, what is the best
method for doing this? And should I find some way of consolidating the
ones
in my recycle bin? Should I (can I) restore them and copy whatever is in
them without overwriting so as not to overwrite anything in a new bit with
something which dates back to last May?