What to do when Compacting PST is very slow

The process of compacting an oversized Outlook PST file is carried out to make the PST file size small. As a result, this improves the performance of MS Outlook and users can perform the different Outlook operations easily. However, sometimes even the simple process of compacting PST file becomes complex and you may face difficulties during process execution. The issues that you may encounter are Outlook running slow, hanging frequently, Outlook taking a long time in PST file compaction or abrupt Outlook closure. 

Why Outlook 2007 Compacting too slow including other Outlook versions­­­­­­­­?

• Large PST file size – If the PST file size is quite large and you have not compacted the file from a long time, the ‘compress PST file’ process may become slow. Also, Outlook may slow down or freeze due to large PST size.

Note – Compact PST file before it becomes too large to prevent the slowdown of PST compact process later on. Schedule compaction at that time when Outlook is not in use or close Outlook at the time of compacting PST file to avoid Outlook freezing or the slow down issue.

• Compacting PST while using Outlook – If you compact the PST file while using Outlook, the PST Compact process may become slow.

Note – Always close Outlook before you begin to compact the large PST file.

Solutions to compress PST file

There exist both manual and automated software ways to compress large size PST file. These are as follows:

1. Manual Method using the Outlook’s default ‘Compact Now’ feature – Use the ‘Compact Now’ feature to compress large PST file in the following ways depending on the MS Outlook version.

In MS Outlook 2016, 2013 & 2010, the steps to compress large PST file are:

1. Open MS Outlook
2. Click ‘File’ menu
3. Click ‘Account Settings’ dropdown and then ‘Account Settings’ option
4. In ‘Account Settings’ dialog box, click ‘Data Files’ and then ‘Settings’ function
5. In ‘Outlook Data File’ dialog box, click ‘Compact Now’ button
6. Click ‘OK’ to exit­­­

In Outlook 2007, the steps to compress large PST file are:

1. Open Outlook
2. Click ‘File’ menu>> Data File Management
3. Click ‘Data Files’ and the ‘Settings’ button
4. Click ‘Compact Now’ button
5. Press ‘OK’ to exit

2. Automated Software – Use Stellar Outlook Toolkit, which is a bundle software having ‘Compact Outlook PST’ option for compressing large PST files. On using it, the toolkit embedded with powerful algorithms compacts the PST file to reduce its size. It deeply scans the PST file and compacts all the e-mails, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes and other data items. You can also schedule the PST file compacting process in a customized manner. Also, the software breaks the limitations of the manual method and allows you to optimize the free space to the maximum limit. Being a fast software addresses the issue of ‘slow PST compacting’ process effectively

Further, it takes a completely different approach for performing the compaction operation. There are ‘four compact options’ and ‘three advanced compact options’ to compress the PST file. The four compact options are:

• Compress all Outlook attachments in a newly created PST file
• Extract and save all attachments to a folder wherein no interlinking is lost
• Extract, compress and save all attachments to a folder wherein no interlinking is lost
• Remove all the attachments in a newly created PST file

The three advance options are:

• “Remove Unused Space” – The software removed the unused space
• ‘Empty ‘Deleted Items’ folder’ – The software removed all data from the Outlook’s ‘Deleted Items’ folder
• ‘Empty ‘Junk E-mail’ folder’ – The software removes data from Outlook’s ‘Junk Email’ folder

You can easily access all the attachments without difficulty from the PST file. Therefore, making the PST file size small and efficiently using the free space can be accomplished automatically and securely with the help of this software.

Conclusion

You can use an automated method instead of manual ‘Compact Now’ method to make the process of PST file compaction easy and fast. The use of ‘Compact Outlook PST’ option in Stellar Outlook Toolkit ensures that even if the PST file size is too large and you are compacting PST file while using Outlook, the ‘compact PST file’ process is quick. In addition, the use of toolkit is an advantage as it acts like a manager addressing several Outlook issues and manage the Outlook data file. You can use the toolkit for several purposes. These are to repair damaged Outlook PST file, split PST file, recover deleted emails, convert OST to PST, merge Outlook PSTs, remove duplicate emails and recover lost or forgotten Outlook password. Altogether, the toolkit serves multiple purposes to manage MS Outlook with its all-in-one bundle of eight modules.