Microsoft KB Archive/197752

= OL2000: (IMO) Attributes of the Personal Folder in Outlook =

Article ID: 197752

Article Last Modified on 9/29/2003

-

APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition

-



This article was previously published under Q197752



NOTE: These procedures only apply if you have installed Outlook with the Internet Mail Only option. To determine your installation type, click About Microsoft Outlook on the Help menu. If you have the Internet Mail Only option installed, you see "Internet Mail Only".

For information about the differences between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express e-mail clients, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

257824 OL2000: Differences Between Outlook and Outlook Express



SUMMARY
This article discusses the purpose and capacity of the Personal Store storage facilities used by the Internet Mail Only installation of Outlook.



MORE INFORMATION
A Personal Folder file, also known as a .pst, is the medium for storing Mail Application Program Interface (MAPI) objects created or received by Outlook. Unlike a MS-DOS or Windows file system, the .pst is only accessible by a MAPI aware program such as Outlook.

One or more .pst files can reside on your computer. A .pst can be defined as your primary store, meaning that your mail is delivered to the Inbox in that file and all of your other default Outlook folders, such as Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, Journal, Notes, Sent Items, and Tasks reside there. Or, a .pst file can be defined as a secondary store, meaning you can move items to it, either manually or with Inbox Rules, from your primary store.

Each .pst file can contain 16,384 items. An item is either a folder, message, task, etc. Each folder can contain a maximum of 16,384 items. If you select the Allow upgrade to large tables option, each folder can contain up to 65,536 items. The total file size of a .pst cannot exceed 2 gigabytes (GB).

