Split .PST files into smaller files

If you are a pack rat like me and everyone else that like to keep every email in their Outlook inbox and archive folders, then probably you already found out the hard way that .PST files have size limitation. according to Microsoft the ANSI code PST format has a storage limit up to 2 GBs, and is the default format for office 2002 and earlier versions. the UNICODE format is the default format for office 2003/2007 and supports up to 20 GBs.

it might be comforting to know that you have a whopping 20 GBs to store your emails in Outlook 2003/2007, but according to my observations .PSTs bigger than 5 GBs become a problem. Outlook crashes, hangs, slow down etc, are some of the problems you might experience with .PSTs larger than 5 GBs. for that reason I advice people to split their large archives into smaller ones, that way you avoid outlook problems. so how do you split those big archive files? so far I have not found a tool to do that, so I do it manually for myself and people I support.

On your Outlook click on File then click on New and scroll on the way to the bottom and choose Outlook Data File:

The New Outlook Data File Window will come up:

from the window above, you have two options “Office Outlook Persona Folders file (.pst ) and “Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders file ( .pst). these are the two formats I was talking above, so choose the .pst with the biggest storage support – the first option. then name your file accordingly. if you create many .pst files you should choose a good descriptive name for your .PST files to avoid confusion when mapping them, and also to keep your email archives in order.

now, that you have created your empty .pst file, set a rule on outlook to move all your emails from your big archive or inbox folders to this pst file you just created. what I like to do is to keep all related emails in one archive, like all my tech support related emails I keep them on one archive, personal emails, distribution group emails on different archives.

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