Compact OST File

How to compact OST File?

Compacting OST file enables you to reclaim the extra space available in the OST file and thus, increases the storage capacity on hard disk by the amount released from the OST file. When emails and other items are deleted from your mailbox then the items are not actually deleted from the OST file. They are just marked as deleted; therefore, you cannot see those items in your mailbox. In addition, the space occupied by those items is also not relinquished from OST until you do not compact OST file. However, to compact OST file, you should make sure that the size of OST is greater than or equal to 16 KB. If the size is less than 16 KB then you will not be able to compact OST file.

MS Outlook on some regular interval of times automatically compact OST file. However, for that only MS Outlook should be running. Due to this limitation of MS Outlook, you sometimes need to manually compact OST file. Mentioned below are the steps that help you compact OST file in Outlook with ease and effectiveness:

1. Start MS Outlook.
2. Click Tools > Account Settings. The "Account Settings" dialog box appears:
   
3. Click the Change button. The "Change E-mail Account" dialog box appears:
   
4. Click the More Settings button. The "Microsoft Exchange" dialog box appears:
   
5. Select the Advanced tab. The view of the "Microsoft Exchange" dialog box gets changed:
   
6. Click the Offline Folder File Settings button. The "Offline Folder File Settings" dialog box appears:
   
7. Click the Compact Now button. MS Outlook starts compacting the OST file:
   
8. Once the MS Outlook completes compacting OST file, the Compact Now dialog box will disappear. Now, click the OK button in the "Offline Folder File Settings" dialog box to close it.
9. Click the OK button in the "Microsoft Exchange" dialog box to close it.
10. Click the Cancel button in the "Change E-mail Account" dialog box to exit the dialog box.
11. Click the Close button in the "Account Settings" dialog box to exit it.
12. Restart MS Outlook.

This is how you can compact OST file to free up the extra space available in it.