How Can One Truncate Microsoft Outlook Email Messages?

MS Outlook is one of the most versatile email clients till date. Even though the storage formats differ, it is fully functional in both Windows and Mac operating systems. You can use it in cache enabled mode with Exchange server and also can make its use when offline. All these factors have largely contributed in its popularity worldwide and thus has emerged as one of the most used email clients on a global level. There are different versions of Outlook available and thus different users may be working on different versions.

The only time when Outlook might pose problems for its users is when they have to face issues related to the size of the PST file.

Why To Truncate Outlook Email Messages?

The previous versions of MS Outlook i.e. MS Outlook 2002 and earlier versions stored their data in ANSI type PST file. This ANSI PST file has the size limitation of 2 GB. In case you are still using the earlier versions of Outlook, you might be experiencing corruption issues in your PST file. This is because your PST file has reached its maximum size limit and the data exceeding the limit usually gets deleted. In order to fix this problem, the users can opt to truncate their email messages so as to reduce the size of their PST file.

Before moving on to the procedure to truncate the messages, let us first have a look on the errors that usually arise when the ANSI PST file crosses the 2 GB size limit.

Errors Due To Oversized PST File

• When the users try to access an oversized PST file, you will encounter below mentioned errors.

You can also see the following error displayed:

•          When your Outlook PST file reaches its maximum size limit, new messages cannot be saved in the PST file.
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 Furthermore, Outlook will not receive any new messages. At such instances following error may arise:

All the above mentioned errors can be avoided by a truncation utility.

PST2GB: PST Truncation Utility

In order to truncate Microsoft Outlook email messages, Microsoft provides a utility named PST2GB. The tool helps the users to truncate the PST files in smaller parts so as to truncate the email messages of Outlook. This enables the user to overcome the above mentioned errors encountered due to large sized PST file. The users can specify the size limit of the PST file up to which the file has to be truncated.

Note: Before truncating the PST file using PST2GB, make sure to back up the PST file data in order to protect the data from getting permanently deleted.

Limitations Of PST Truncation Utility

·       A lot of time is consumed while truncating the PST file. In case the user gets unsuccessful, he will need to try again and again till the file is truncated.

·         The tool while truncating the PST file may permanently delete some of the data residing in the PST file.

Conclusion

Although PST2GB deletes some data from your PST file, it can still be used to truncate Microsoft Outlook email messages after taking backup of the PST file. And  thus can avoid the occurrence of the PST file errors.