Expert: Jim Stiles - 12/6/2004

Question
Hi,
I am running Windows XP and Office Pro. XP.  I currently have 2 Windows Profiles, or screen-names. (One for me and one for my wife.)  When we are logged into our screen-name and open Outlook, we each have a separate data file (outlook.pst,) that is accessed.  We have many of the same contacts, but some that are different.  We each have 2 email addresses a piece, each that are downloaded into Outlook when send/receiving.  One html (Hotmail,) and one Pop3.  

I have been having some trouble with Outlook working properly as well as Windows, and so, as I will be upgrading my computer system, I would like to use only one Windows Profile and Only One Outlook profile.  

What I want to know is if I can take her outlook.pst file and my outlook.pst file and merge them so that all of our contacts would be there as well as all of our email and personal folders.  Is this possible? Is there any software out there to do this?  What about opening her profile from mine and dragging & dropping?  Whatever help you can give me is greatly appreciated.  Thank you,

Nathan.

Answer
Yes, I will explain how you can merge two pst files. Before you get started, I recommend you make a backup copy of both PST files just in case something were to go wrong. I also strongly recommend checking the file size of both PST files. A PST file has a size limit of 2 GB. If the combined size of the two PST files is above 2 GB, then you'll have to do some cleaning before you merge the files. Otherwise, corruption will occur during the merge and there will be a significant amount of data lost.

The first trick to merging the two PST files is to make sure that Outlook is configured to use both files. To do so, copy both PST files to a common location. Now, select the Services command from Outlook's Tools menu. When you see the Services properties sheet, make sure that the Services tab is selected and click the Add button. Select personal Folders from the list and click OK. Outlook will now ask you for the name of the personal folder. Select the first of the two personal folders through the browse window and click OK. You'll then see a summary screen of the folder's configuration. Click OK two more times to incorporate the personal folder into Outlook. Now, repeat the process to bring the second personal folder into Outlook.

Now that you've moved both folders into Outlook, decide which folder will be your master folder. You'll be moving data from the other folder into the master folder. The next step in the process is to make a list of the folders that exist within both personal folders, such as Inbox, Sent Items and Deleted items. Now, go into the Inbox of the non master folder and select the top message. Press CTRL-A to select all messages. Now, drag the messages into the inbox in the master folder. Repeat this process for all other folders that exist within both personal folders.

Now it's time to merge any unique folders. You can move unique folders by simply dragging them to the master Personal Folders container.

After everything has been moved and merged, the last step in the process is to remove the now unnecessary personal folder. To do so, select the Services command from the Tools menu When you see the Services tab of the Services properties sheet, select the unwanted personal folder and click the Remove button.

Jim.