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Strategy for backup of Outlook pst file

My PST file has over 12,000 emails. Is there an easy way to select a date range that would encompass say 11,000 emails and back only those up AND in turn have the pst file reduced in size very substantially? There is very little chance that I would ever need any of the 11,000 backed up emails, but I would want to leave that as an option of course, hence the backup. At this time I am primarily concerned with the bloated pst file.
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Joe Winograd
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I recommend against autoarchiving.  I did it once,  and had to reset everything.  I'll never try that again.
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> I recommend against autoarchiving.

I agree. I always do it manually. But many users like it and use it without problems, which is why I mentioned it.
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Experts, I am using Outlook 2013. I always prefer to do any type of backups manually. The auto archiving sounds good, but I fear problems letting Outlook fending for itself. I will try doing it manually tomorrow and post when I have completed it. Thanks..
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Hello Experts. Against my first instinct I have decided to try John Hurst's suggestion. I set it up not to erase any files as suggested. I did  not see an option to run immediately so I chose one day. So far, nothing has happened. It is still showing 12,000 plus emails.  I will hope for the best within a day or so and continue reporting.
If you set it up to run in one day, then by tomorrow or the next day you should see an archive.pst file (or whatever you named it growing in size).

Once archive has completed (a) set it for a normal time frame (once a month say) and (b) Compact the main mail file. Compact is under the Properties of the Mail file (outlook.pst, say)
John Hurst...I set auto archiving to one day. I set it not to erase any file. After 3 days it has not made my pst file or number of emails smaller. Suggestion?
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> Suggestion?

I suggest following the steps in my first post (the manual part, not the last sentence with the AutoArchive part). You'll be able to see results (reduced PST size) immediately after doing the "Compact Now".
Archiving works fine. I have been using for a decade and just port my archives up to the next Outlook version.

Here are my settings (does not depend much on Outlook Version).

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Please let us know
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I still do not trust autoarchiving.
This sounds like a religious question of faith =) Why do you distrust AutoArchiving? What's the reason?
Dear Experts, I want to thank all of you for the Expert suggestions you have offered to me. I feel 98% sure that my solution is in your advice. I don't want to keep this question open, but I don't have the time presently to devote to implementing like this. I will be able to devote time in a few days and will only post if I cannot get Outlook to do what I would like it to do.

Since all of you have been so helpful perhaps you can also look at another Outlook question I have on another pc. While composing any email my text is about 80 points large! It does not arrive that way, just during composing. I have told Outlook the font and size I want, but it ignores me.
You're welcome. For my fellow experts, the other question is here:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28972715/Outlook-2013-HUGE-typeface.html
Regards, Joe
You are always welcome to any assistance we may give.