Many folders

[Richard Flack]

Confession - Im a rat pack, so I keep msgs more or less forever. Folders other than the inbox (organised by topic etc) are fine, none of them is especially big. But the total "inbox" is quite large. Currently its split up as:
main a/c ost file:
Inbox - Jul 1 2012 and later 11,000+ msgs
0 Inbox - Jan 2010 - 31 Jun 2012 14,000 approx
archive pst file
1 Inbox - pre 2010 10,000 approx

It sort of evolved this way. Im wondering what criteria should drive this
- any practical or hard limits on Inbox or folder size?
- any difference between folders within one ost file versus different ost / pst files/

 

[larry]

Outlook 2003 and up doesn't have a limitation when you use a Unicode data file, so you are good there. A huge inbox can slow Outlook down. I try to keep my inbox under 100 (I use the inbox like a task list), but someone (diane?) said under 5000 is ok, over 5000 may slow Outlook down. The reason is that Outlook has to load the Inbox more often and more messages = slower load/refresh times. Subfolders in the inbox are ok, they don't refresh unless you open them, but I move mail to a folder outside the inbox as I'm done with it.

 

[Richard Flack]

Is the speed limited by the server or the client? (Im running on a new fairly powerful machine, if thats relevant)

 

[Diane Poremsky]

A little of both - actually, it's your connection speed, not the mail server, that is a factor, plus the client. Larry is correct, you'll usually notice Outlook slowing down somewhere around 5000 messages. On older, slower computers it might be lower, on super fast computers with no load, you might not notice anything until it gets well over 5000. I recommend moving mail you're finished with to a new folder, it can be under the inbox or elsewhere. The size of that folder doesn't matter - it can have 30 or 40,000. since it's basically an archive folder, you won't open it much and since won't be an issue.

I'd probably move all of 2012 to the 2010 - 2012 folder and maybe make one for 2013 - or move all messages that are over 1 yr old to the 2012 folder. That should get the inbox down to a decent size so it's speedy.

 

[Richard Flack]

Thanks. Im starting to feel Ive fallen down the rabbit hole and Outlook was written by Lewis Carol.
So I moved more msgs out of Inbox to the secondary inbox. Got the size down to about 8k records. I had also scanned for and removed duplicates to another folder (for deletion after review) - all seemed good.

But then sync started up and the message count started INcreasing. it seems to be pulling in duplicates of a lot of the messages.

My second problem is how to identify the duplicates (as opposed to the originals). (The first is why? of course). Records were matched based on equality of: sender, recipient, subject, date sent & size.

The first observation is that many (all?) of the pairs have one showing size = 0 and the other != 0. so two questions, why the 0 and how does such a pair meet the definition for a match?

For a typical pair:
received sent created modified size
A. 06/10/13 05:09 06/10/13 05:07 06/10/13 05:13 25/03/14 12:13 o
B. 06/10/13 05:09 06/10/13 05:07 26/03/14 08:56 06/10/13 05:09 36K

i assume that the received & sent dates are intrinsic to the message (metadata anyone?)
do the created & modified dates refer to the record in the server or the client?
and for B how can the date modified be < date created?

Im really not clear on what sync is doing. I hope Im correct that its goal is to have identical files on the client and on the server. However Im not clear how it decides whether to do this by deleting surplus records or by copying to fill in a missing record. Presumably where a record has been explicitly deleted its smart enough to delete the matching record as opposed to a copy to "un-delete".

 

[Diane Poremsky]

This is IMAP? Did you purge the folder after you moved or deleted the items? It shouldn't matter, but I'd definitely try it.

The sync should use a message id field to keep track of the messages and match them up. It definitely shouldn't be duplicating them.

 

[Richard Flack]

Yes IMAP. No I didnt purge. Wasnt aware of the possibility.

This is probably a REALLY dumb question, but when a message is deleted or moved from a folder that is synced and subscribed, shouldn't it be deleted or moved "simultaneously" from the server and all clients?

Another dumb question ... wouldn't there be standard 'protocols' for syncing IMAP accounts? This stuff has to work across platforms etc (Windows, Apple yadda yadda)... so presumably smart people figured out how this should work in establishing IMAP. So for MS (or whoever) "all you have to do" is implement the protocol? What can go wrong? [Oh I have fast internet, good computer (weak link is the HDD which is only 7200 RPM), quad cores, 8 GB RAM... and Im not aware of any connectivity issues etc during all of this].
Signed,
Naive in the Frozen North.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Not necessarily when you use IMAP - messages are marked for deletion and purged. Outlook 2013 does have the option to either purge or delete - File, Account Settings, double click on the account then click on More Settings - look on the Advanced tab.

 

[Richard Flack]

Neither box is checked, which I take to mean the files are deleted immediately?

Oh, I forgot, back to my previous question ... it looks like Ive got to delete (well move elsewhere) duplicates again. My question is - how can I tell which is the original? In the example above:
using date created, "A" is older, using date modified "B" is older, but its date modified is anomolous.
"A" has 0 size which is worrisome (although the msg looks fine), B does not.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I think you still need Purge when online enabled - I'll have to test it. The first box covers whether they are marked for deletion in place.

Modified date is usually the one to go by - but I'd also add the created date to the view and see if that holds any clues. It may be about as useless as the modified field...

 

[Richard Flack]

Further down the rabbit hole...
Microsoft Support suggested starting over with a new profile which seemed a good idea (but see below). So its syncing away at its leisurely pace. But the interesting thing is - so far anyway, in all cases 'date modified' = 'date received' and 'date created' is now ie when the msg is downloaded. Previously there were odd 'date modified'. MS just said further evidence of corrupt profile. We'll see how this ends up.

....

I did back up all th eold ost files etc. Which may be a good thing as the enw profile has of course trashed all the Rules I had established. Next challenge , figure out a way to extract the rules from the backup.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

It certainly could be a corrupt profile, or a corrupt ost, but support often likes to recreate profiles because it usually fixes the problem (even though other easier options would too) - I call it the modern day format c: - that is almost sure to fix a lot of problems too.

Since the source of the missing rules is new, you likely have a system restore point - roll back to before Support had you create a new profile, export the rules, then revert back to the new restore point. It will be a lot easier than trying ot make the new profile use the old ost.