pst size limit?

G

Guest

Greetings all,

Is there a practical working size limitation for a pst file? I've got one
that's approaching 1 GB, and I want to be sure I'm not asking for trouble.

Thanks,

Larry123
 
P

Peter Scott

First what version of Outlook?
But aside from that I've heard elsewhere on this newsgroup that some
versions of Outlook will work with 4GB pst files, but even so I'd suggest
archiving some the contents to another pst. Just go through each of your
folders and right click the name of the folder either on the title bar or on
the folder list. Select properties then the Auto Archive tab, and set up
your archive file. You can add the file to your folders list through
File/Open/Personal Folders, and the directory where all your pst's are
stored by default will appear.
 
M

Marvin Bordelon

Actually the 2GB is the size limit. Once the file grows
beyond 2GB it becomes corrupted and you need to run the
utility to trim the file down below 2Gb and then run the
scanpst.exe utility which is not always successful.
 
R

Roady [MVP]

An Outlook 97-2002 pst-file can hold up to 2GB of data and then gets
corrupted.
An Outlook 2003 pst-file can by default store up to 20GB but this can be
extended to 4096TB (in case you have some disk space left...)

Either limit is good enough for me really. Just stay below a maximum file
size of what you can backup.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1
 
G

Guest

Actually, the 1 GB pst is a secondary file stored on my local PC. The limit
on the server is 100 MB.

I deal with lots of large file attachments, photos, ppts, pdfs, etc that
quickly clog up the file. I do back up this 1 gb file regularly onto a
network file server, so "safety" isn't too much of a concern.

Just wanted to know if the file size itself might be a problem.

Thanks all.

Larry
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

In practical terms, however, the .pst file can show problems at around 1.6
gigs, and be unusable at around 1.87.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After searching google.groups.com and finding no answer, larry asked:

| Greetings all,
|
| Is there a practical working size limitation for a pst file? I've got
| one that's approaching 1 GB, and I want to be sure I'm not asking for
| trouble.
|
| Thanks,
|
| Larry123
 
B

Brian Tillman

Peter Scott said:
But aside from that I've heard elsewhere on this newsgroup that some
versions of Outlook will work with 4GB pst files,
Click to expand...

That has never been stated in this newsgroup. The limit for an ANSI PST
(the only kind of PST for Outlook 97-2002, but readable by all versions of
Outlook) is 2,000,000,000 (1.86 G) bytes. The limit for a Unicode PST
(useable only with Outlook 2003) is 20 Gb.

That said, all versions of Outlook can handle more than the limit of any one
PST by using multiple PSTs.
 
B

Brian Tillman

Roady said:
An Outlook 97-2002 pst-file can hold up to 2GB of data and then gets
corrupted.
An Outlook 2003 pst-file can by default store up to 20GB but this can
be extended to 4096TB (in case you have some disk space left...)
Click to expand...

4 petabytes?? I'd be surprised. I thought that the limit was 4 terabytes.
 
R

Roady [MVP]

Yeah, it can be really huge :-D
I haven't tested it though ;-)

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1
 
R

Roady [MVP]

The max size I can force it to be is
4294967295MB

Who cares about that 1MB? :-D

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1

-----
Roady said:
Yeah, it can be really huge :-D
I haven't tested it though ;-)

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1

-----
Brian Tillman said:
4 petabytes?? I'd be surprised. I thought that the limit was 4
terabytes.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
B

Brian Tillman

Roady said:
The max size I can force it to be is
4294967295MB

Who cares about that 1MB? :-D
Click to expand...

That's the largest value an unsigned integer of 32 bits can hold. Also
called 4 terabytes, as I said. Nyeah, nyeah!
 
R

Roady [MVP]

LOL, thinking about a user having a pst-file that large makes my head spin
:-D

*would you be so kind to store my e-mails on this floppy disk?*

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1
 
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