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Email size increases when moved to different folder

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6 replies

by bkbradley

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I receive a large volume of emails on a daily basis. I noticed today that the size of the email nearly doubles when the email is moved to a different folder or mailbox. This occurs when manually right-clicking on the email and selecting "Move to" as well as when a rule is applied to the message that moves it to a different folder. Does anyone know why this occurs and if there is any configuration change I can make to prevent it from occurring?

6 replies

by richard.vanderwal

we are expierencing the same issue.
Moving mulitple files cause incremental increase in size in the archive pst. Increments are substantial in size and are incremental
a group of example three moves of 30 files - each group of 30 indv E-mails are 30 K when moved are 45 K (15K added) second group 60 K(30K added) and by the third group moved over the files are 90 K in size and corrupted ( an extra 60 K is padded to each file)

did you ever find the cause of corruption and solution
we suspect Microsoft Conference Add on -- any info would be appreciated.

by alfa11

I'll assume that you're using Outlook or Outlook Express. To solve this you should compact the mail file from time to time. This happens because when you delete an email from a local file, the mail is still there, to definitely erase it you must compact the data file. After doing this you'll see that your file size will change.

by bkbradley

I am using Outlook. I apologize for leaving that important information out of the question. I appreciate your suggestion of compacting the mail file. The problem is that I receive up to 5,000 emails in one day. Company policy dictates that my mailbox size can only be 100 MB. I use rules to manage the mail coming in but that's causing emails that are normally 35K to grow to 65K when moved by the rules. If I can prevent the message from doubling in size upon receipt then I will be able to receive more emails before my mailbox fills up. Is it possible to configure Outlook to continually compact the file or does it have to be done manually?

by dr dij

move some of the email to a secondary .PST file. This does not have to be stored on company server where they have file size restrictions. You can have both open at once in outlook, e.g. the archive .pst outlook can be set to copy to.

by bkbradley

The emails are in a group mailbox that is accessed by multiple team members from various locations. A .PST file is locally stored and would not be accessible to all team members.

The heart of the issue is that the individual email messages are increasing in size even though no text is being added to the messages themselves. There is no logical explanation as to why this is happening. If I move an apple from one basket to another basket, the apple will take up the same amount of space in the 2nd basket as it did in the first basket. In Outlook, the "apple" is taking up twice as much space in the 2nd basket as it did in the 1st basket. The only explanation I can think of is that Outlook is creating a ghost image of the message in the first folder that is somehow linked to the message after it is moved. I need to find a way to make the message maintain its original size once it is moved to a different folder.

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