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How To Use ‘Pst2gb.exe’ Tool For Oversized PST Files

Apart from emailing, MS Outlook also enables its users to manage Calendars and maintain to do list. All this data of a user mailbox is stored on his/her local hard drive in Personal Storage Table (PST) file. As the number of Outlook mailbox data increase with time, the size of the PST file also gets big in the same ratio. Since Outlook versions prior to 2007 are unable to handle PST files greater than 2GB, larger PSTs tend to create great trouble. Some common symptoms seen, when PST files cross their predefined size limits, are failing send/receive operations and encounter of an error message upon Outlook startup.

The reason for encountering the above symptoms is corruption of Outlook PST file due to oversize. Though Outlook provides inbuilt utility, i.e. scanpst.exe for repairing corrupt PST, but this tool too becomes unable to do any needful in such cases. In such situations, reducing the size of the PST file and then scanning it with scanpst.exe can be a helpful solution. For reducing large sized PST, Outlook provides a tool ‘pst2gb.exe’, which is available for download. Once PST is trimmed from 2GB, it can be repaired for errors with scanpst.exe.

 Let us take a practical example to understand how this cropping tool of Outlook works for trimming large PST file. Suppose you get the following error message when you start your Outlook or try to open your PST file:

 “Errors have been detected in the file <file_path>. Quit all mail-enabled applications, and then use the Inbox Repair Tool.”

 Here the ‘file_path’ is the path of the Outlook PST file. However, the Inbox Repair Tool of Outlook, i.e. ‘Scanpst.exe’ becomes completely unable to do any needful in this situation. In such case, you can download ‘pst2gb.exe’ software and crop your PST and then scan it with Inbox Repair tool for fixing its error. Follow below mentioned steps to do the same, but before attempting these steps it is recommended to take the backup of your PST file:

  • Start Pst2gb.exe executable file.

  • Click ‘Browse’ to select the oversized PST file. After that click ‘Open’.

  • Click ‘Create’, and select the location and name of the truncated data file, and after that click ‘Save’.

  • Mention the amount of data that you want to truncate in the PST file. There is no rule for truncating the amount. However, the best results are achieved when you truncate between 20-25 MB, but you can truncate less or even more, depending upon your requirement.

  • After this run Inbox Repair Tool for repairing the smaller PST file.

  • Open the repaired PST in Outlook.

  • If your PST file is not opening here, then discard the truncated or cropped PST file and repeat the same process with original PST. Truncate more data than that you have taken in the first step and then repeat the process.

Note: There are high chances of data loss in this cropping process applied through ‘Pst2gb.exe’ utility.

Therefore, in order to ensure the security of your Outlook mailbox data while repairing the corruption in PST file, it is recommended to use professional PST repair software. Professional tools of this category repair all kinds of corruptions of PST file even including the corruption caused due to size limit. Almost all PST repair tools ensure the security of data stored in your PST file, thus they are the best method to overcome the loss.

Written By

I am Data Recovery Expert from Stellar Information System Ltd and currently doing research on Outlook PST Recovery Software, Outlook Express Recovery, Exchange Recovery.

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. nicolas

    March 15, 2013 at 9:00 pm

    Thanks for sharing this PST recovery utility. When I try to restore the PST files on my Outlook application using the different Outlook recovery utility it works great for me. I have got back all my lost emails, journals, details. Whether you want to try this, you can follow the mentioned link.

  2. janniemart

    March 18, 2013 at 6:40 am

    With the Outlook PST repair software you can easily repair your severely corrupted PST files. It is capable of repairing oversized PST files and also it can repair the poorly damaged header PST files. It supports all the latest and earlier Outlook versions. It is easy to use and provides you graphical user-interface.

  3. tomaurthor

    March 26, 2013 at 5:29 am

    RecoveryFix for Outlook Software having user friendly interface, so that there is no technical skill required to access this software. Just follow the instruction given by the software.

    Thanks

  4. Sally

    June 17, 2013 at 5:06 am

    I am learning that over sizing the limit can really cause some major problems. Thanks guys for stating which software can recover the files.

  5. pattnatt

    June 20, 2013 at 6:42 am

    Pst2gb.exe is a Truncation Utility for oversized PST files, but seems it only works with ANSI PST files. It creates a truncated copy of a PST file. This is a nice way to reduce an oversized ANSI PST file, but what about a Unicode PST file!
    I found a blog on WordPress about “how to safely compress an oversized PST file”. The blog is very informative and will help Outlook users reduce their oversized PST files.
    http://semnaitik.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/how-to-safely-compress-an-oversized-pst-file/
    Regards.

  6. Sarah Miller

    July 24, 2013 at 7:51 am

    I’ve never used Pst2gb.exe tool before…Although some of my friends suggested me to use this tool some days ago. I like your blog and definitely I’ll use this tool.

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