Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Goraps
GorapsFlag for Canada

asked on

Outlook 2007 - Large OST file

I have a user that has a large Outlook 2007 OST file. It was over 4 gigs... We got it down to 1.7 gigs. The problem she is having is anytime she logs into OUtlook 2007 it always starts out by updating Inbox with 150MB of data.. regardless if there is emails to be downloaded or not.. Currently using Cached mode... Cannot use online mode with our current internet speeds.  She has to constantly click send / receive to get new emails to download or exit outlook and log back in.. when she does this it still looks to download 150MB of data.  Please advise.

thanks
Avatar of borki
borki
Flag of Australia image

You could delete the .ost file and let Outlook create a new one from scratch. Still painful, as it will (eventually) download 1.7GB.

If that doesn't help, I would wipe the Outlook configuration and start setting up Outlook as if you were using it the first time.
Avatar of Goraps

ASKER

Done both of those... same issue.
Use a filter to restrict the items that you synchronize from Exchange to your .ost file
To configure a synchronization filter on a specific Exchange mailbox folder, follow these steps:
1.Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.
2.In the Properties dialog box, click the Synchronization tab.
3.On the Synchronization tab, click Filter.
4.In the Filter dialog box, specify the criteria that will be used to synchronize new items that you want to arrive in this folder.
5.Click OK two times to return to Outlook.
Note This method will reduce the current size of the .ost file. Items that were previously synchronized in this folder will be removed from the local copy of your .ost file the next time that Outlook synchronizes this folder. These items will be removed if they do not fit the filter criteria. You may have to wait for background compaction to occur before you can see the size of your .ost file decrease. Alternatively, you can manually compact the .ost file by clicking the Compact Now button in the Advanced settings of the Exchange account.

If you use a synchronization filter, you can view the items that are not synchronized with the .ost file either by using Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access or by using an Outlook client that is configured to use online mode in an Outlook profile.

If you use a portable computer
If you are using a portable computer, you may experience these problems sooner than you would on a desktop computer. This occurs because hard disks on portable computers are generally slower than hard disks on desktop computers. The performance problems are directly related to hard disk speed
Avatar of Goraps

ASKER

I cant have this user going to 2 different places to see emails.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of TommySzalapski
TommySzalapski
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
This could be a mailbox problem on server or outlook configuration problem on PC.

On PC you can try to delete outlook profile, move all data from both outlook folders in user profile (nk2 file most probably you will need to copy autocomplete cache) and recreate outlook profile.
Locations in windows xp:
c:\documents and settings\%user%\application data\microsoft\outlook
and c:\documents and settings\%user%\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook

If that will not help, then you can try to configure that account on another computer - just to be sure that it is not an original PC problem. If the problem persists also on another PC, that the source of the problem is in mailbox. You can try to check consistency of exchange database or simply try to create another datastore and try to move that mailbox there.
run scanpst.exe on the users data file, and see if it comes back with errors
Are there any issues when accessing the account from web access?
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
In http:#a36600904 I actually suggested recreating the mailbox as a last resort option.
Also, the other suggestions (in mine and the other posts) are valuable to have in the answer database. I recommend just including a closing comment saying you had to recreate the mailbox so others with that problem will know to do the same.