Gmail and outlook (2010) PST file size

[smsff7]

I have three email accounts with gmail connected to outlook 2010. Sadly the PST file contains all the emails from my email addresses and since I hate deleting emails the PST files are huge. Is there a way to set up outlook so it only goes back X ammount of time for storing email on my system and have some other way to access anything older?

Right now I have 10 GB's of files on my laptop and I am sure my desktop to. So I would much rather shrink that down as much as possible, if not then I can move the files to a none OS HDD, but with my laptop at least hard drive space is somewhat limited.

 

[Irene]

Maybe the auto archive feature would help:
Description of the Auto Archive feature in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003

P.S. It also refers to Outlook 2010.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830119

 

[smsff7]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks as that will will still keep the gigs of data on my HDD, but in a separate PST folder. What I want is to only have the emails up to a point and then no more. I want to clear off my HDD of messages over a few months, but keep them on gmail.

 

[Irene]

You can manage the settings of the auto-archive folder to delete old after a certain period:
How to Manage AutoArchive in Outlook 2010 - How-To Geek

 

[RandyD123]

What you might do is set up Outlook to use POP3 instead of IMAP. When you do that all mail from G-Mail will stay on the GMail server and you can delete what ever you want from your local Outlook .PST file. I've been doing it this way for years and my .PST file is very small (14MB)

 

[Marshalhubs]

I have three email accounts with gmail connected to outlook 2010. Sadly the PST file contains all the emails from my email addresses and since I hate deleting emails the PST files are huge. Is there a way to set up outlook so it only goes back X ammount of time for storing email on my system and have some other way to access anything older?

Right now I have 10 GB's of files on my laptop and I am sure my desktop to. So I would much rather shrink that down as much as possible, if not then I can move the files to a none OS HDD, but with my laptop at least hard drive space is somewhat limited.

Hi,

According to my understanding your main problem is huge size of Outlook PST file data that is 10 GB. In such case it is advisable to compress your PST file so that you can overcome the problem of PST file size. You can do it yourself by following the steps available on Microsoft Support. Visit to:How to compact PST and OST files to eliminate deleted item space in Outlook

 

[ashleyg]

@Marshalhubs

Excellent advice! and should be done whenever you do any significant purging of emails.
I'm sure people will see a huge reduction in their .pst file sizes immediately after doing this.