[highland403]

I have been using Thunderbird but recently needed to switch back to Outlook and have been using it for some time. I have been gradually importing emails from Thunderbird into Outlook and then archiving these older files so Outlook didn't hit the 2Gb limit.

Unfortunately, the last file I imported was too large for Outlook.pst and now it's over the 2Gb limit. It froze up during the import process and after forcing it to close, now it won't open.

I know there is a program (can't remember what it's called)that will truncate some of the files in Outlook.pst to get it under the 2Gb limit, but it's my understanding that those emails will be lost.

If I use System Restore and go back to a date before the last import, will it eliminate the imported emails from outlook.pst? If not, is there any other way to undo that import or alter the outlook.pst file so I can open outlook?

Any help would be appreciated.

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System Restore isn't going to help you. The file will still be too big afterwards.

This is what you're looking for:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497

Unfortunately the way this program works is by simply chopping a portion of the file off. Data loss will occur.

[Neil Jones]

System Restore isn't going to help you. The file will still be too big afterwards.

This is what you're looking for:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497

Unfortunately the way this program works is by simply chopping a portion of the file off. Data loss will occur.

[highland403]

Is there any way to control how much is chopped off or does this program chop the bare minimum to get the file under 2Gb.

Also, is there any way to control what it chops?

[Neil Jones]

No. It's a last-ditch attempt to get the file working again in Outlook.

[highland403]

In the Oversized PST Recovery Tool, I selected outlook.pst as the file to be recovered and created a destination file called outlook-chopped.pst. The program doesn't tell you where to create this file so I just left it in the folder with the original outlook.pst file.

The program doesn't give any instructions on what to do next other than if it "works" then run the Inbox Repair Tool. But it doesn't describe what it means by "works". I assumed it meant use this chopped file to open Outlook. So I tried opening outlook with the new file. I changed the file name outlook-chopped.pst to outlook.pst and tried opening Outlook, but I get this error message:

The file C:\Documents and Settings\ ... \outlook.pst is not compatible with this version of the Personal Folders information service.

Also, the chopped file IS less than 2Gb.

Edited by highland403, 13 June 2010 - 03:28 PM.

[highland403]

Apparantly, the outlook.pst file got corrupted during importing. I tried running the Inbox Repair Tool on the original outlook.pst file and it found errors. After repairing the errors, I was able to open Outlook.

The file is still too large so I am now trying to Archive everything.

Do you know if there is any way to make the Outlook.pst file hold more than 2GB? If not, I think I will just archive all emails and work from the archive folder.