Comments on: Is there an easy and/or cost-efficient way of aggregating 5GB of .pst files into a searchable database?

Question: Is there an easy and/or cost-efficient way of aggregating 5GB of .pst files into a searchable database?

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:17:51 -0800

So I've got a stack of CDs with all kinds of miscellaneous data, but most importantly, 5 GBs plus of .pst files from Outlook. Is there an easy and/or cost-efficient way of aggregating these files into a searchable database?

By: dodgygeezer

dodgygeezer — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:47:48 -0800

This document gives you the general idea of how you can import a pst into Access. I hope that's helpful

By: oissubke

oissubke — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:00:50 -0800

I've been looking for a way to do this exact thing. I found a way to get it into Access, but it strips all the times and dates (and much of the other auxiliary data), which makes it worthless for me. I want all of the actual PST data.

dodgy, the link you posted looks good, but I think it's only for Office 2003, which not many people have yet.

By: j.edwards

j.edwards — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:21:03 -0800

I think MailNaviagator will do what you want. It's also a client, but you could just import the PSTs and use the search features.

By: crunchburger

crunchburger — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:14:18 -0800

Access databases can be no larger than 2 GB. At 2GB, you will experience failing queries and odd, inconsistent errors. So, unless the data compresses 2.5 times (maybe you could throw away some of the fields and squeeze it in), you'd need something else, or multiple .mdb files linked together.

By: SpecialK

SpecialK — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 20:25:57 -0800

You can, however, use Access to generate flat SQL files which you can then import into MySQL, which doesn't have a 2GB limit.

By: majcher

majcher — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 21:01:50 -0800

I've never used it, but a couple of friends of mine who have a lot of stuff on CD to organize highly recommend cdfinder.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 00:59:59 -0800

A pst file is an Access database, to all intents and purposes.

If there's an answer, you'll probably find it at Slipstick, the resource for all things Outlooky.

I also found this and this.

I used to work with Outlook/Exchange for a living. If you have any skills at all in writing Visual Basic, it's incredibly easy to write code to export data in any form you desire. MSDN has tons of code samples, as does Slipstick (which may have a pre-written solution linked for your pleasure).