Personal folders are multiplying

G

George Hester

They are increasing without bound. I tried to add a different pst to Outlook 2003. I noticed that new email was going to both of them and I cannot close them. I removed the other psts fronm the default location but still I have two personal folders and I cannot close either of them. I remember Outlook 2000 had this problem. I used to have 5 of them all getting the new mail. How do I fix this problem? Thanks.
 
B

Brian Tillman

George Hester said:
They are increasing without bound. I tried to add a different pst to
Outlook 2003. I noticed that new email was going to both of them and
I cannot close them. I removed the other psts fronm the default
location but still I have two personal folders and I cannot close
either of them. I remember Outlook 2000 had this problem. I used to
have 5 of them all getting the new mail. How do I fix this problem?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a corrupted mail profile. CLick COntrol
Panel>Mail>Show Profiles>Add and create a new mail profile, pointing it at
your existing PST.
 
G

George Hester

Yes that may have worked. I did fix the trouble. I uninstalled Outlook 2003 and removed everything from the
two Outlook folders under Documents and Settings\%profile%. Then I reinstalled Microsoft Outlook 2003.
That didn't fix the trouble but I was close. I had two Parent folders with no name and were pointing to
<@3507;>. Both of them. So I Repaired Office and asked it to clean up any customiztion I had done. That was
good because when I fired up Outlook 2003 again it was just like starting over.

But I can say I will never add a pst the way I did from an article I read at Microsoft...(File | Open | Open data
file...) again. From now on I add a pst by Tools | Options... | Mail Setup | Data Files...| Add. Then change the
name NOT Personal Folders Right-click Personal Folders | Properties | Advanced | Name | Something unique |
OK

And then change the delivery location Tools | E-mail accounts... | View or change existing e-mail accounts | Next |
Deliver new e-mail to the following location (drop down).
 
B

Brian Tillman

George Hester said:
But I can say I will never add a pst the way I did from an article I
read at Microsoft...(File | Open | Open data
file...) again. From now on I add a pst by Tools | Options... | Mail
Setup | Data Files...| Add.
Click to expand...

It's exactly the same thing.
 
G

George Hester

Might be the same thing but the effect of the first one was devastating. I did it and as I was starting to move messages from one pst to the other I noticed my New Mail going to two Personal Folders' Inbox. In fact I noticed they were identical. In fact I couldn't close either of them. In fact Miocrosoft Outlook 2003 was broke. So although they might do the same thing one lead to failure and the other to success. I'll take the successful way any day.
 
B

Brian Tillman

George Hester said:
Might be the same thing but the effect of the first one was
devastating. I did it and as I was starting to move messages from
one pst to the other I noticed my New Mail going to two Personal
Folders' Inbox.
Click to expand...

This is frequently caused by copying a PST over the top of another PST of
the same name.
 
G

George Hester

Hmmm...I didn't do that but I did do something similar. I renamed
outlook.pst to outlook1.pst. Renamed my username.pst to outlook.pst. And
then fired up Outlook. Everything seemd to be fine until I added
outlook1.pst in the manner I described as my first attempt. I think that's
the way it went. I did it a little differently the second time around.
 
B

Brian Tillman

George Hester said:
Hmmm...I didn't do that but I did do something similar. I renamed
outlook.pst to outlook1.pst. Renamed my username.pst to outlook.pst.
And then fired up Outlook. Everything seemd to be fine until I added
outlook1.pst in the manner I described as my first attempt. I think
that's the way it went. I did it a little differently the second
time around.
Click to expand...

That could cause what you saw. Your mail profile points to a specific PST
by more that just its name. When you replace that PST with another of the
same name without removing the PST from the profile, the profile then
becomes inconsistent because, while the name remains the same, other
metadata contained within the file is now different. This confuses the
profile into considering the PST as a separate one as well as the original
one.
 
G

George Hester

Yes I see. Actually the profile for the one that was replaced and the
profile for the one I replaced with were exactly the same for all outward
appearances. But thanks won't do that agin.
 
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