Convenient Solution to fix oversize OST File Issues

In earlier versions of MS-Outlook (2002 or before), there was a predefined maximum size of OST files that was 2 GB. As a regular user of MS-Outlook email application, we receive lot of emails including attachments & this makes OST file size very heavy. As the size of outlook files get increased, it also affects the Performance of MS-Outlook. It is also possible that due to large size of OST file, user will encounter problems in receiving and sending emails from their Outlook account & may also face OST File Corruption.

The suitable solution to fix oversize OST File is to compression of OST file.

Mis Conception: To reduce the size of OST file, users usually delete unwanted emails from their accounts or empty the space but they are not aware of the fact that deleted unwanted emails still remain in their deleted items folder or in OST file.

There are the two ways of compressing large size OST file i.e.

1. Manual compaction 
2. Automatic background compaction

 NOTE: - It’s not necessary that compacting process will remove all the free space from the file. It leaves either 16 KB or 4% of the file size before compacting. For compaction, file must meet the following criteria.

1. The file must be 16 KB or larger.
2. The file must have at least 16 KB of free space since the last time that you compact it.

Manual Steps to Compact OST File

For user's of Outlook 2003 & earlier version

• Start your Outlook Application and go to tool menu.
• Select your E-mail Account. 
• To change existing e-mail account taps on view and proceed. 
• Move to Microsoft Exchange Server & click on change. 
• For further compaction process Click on More settings & go to Advance tab. 
• Choose Off line Folder File Settings in advance Tab. 
• Now click on compact or when operation finished tap twice on OK button. 
• To finish compaction process completely taps Next & Finish.

For user's of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 

• First step to perform compaction is to empty the deleted items folder. 
• Point to Tools menu Select Account Settings.  
• Now select Microsoft Exchange Server & hit the Change button.  
• Go to More Settings and select Advanced tab,  
• After choosing advance tab select Off line Folder File Settings.  
• After selection of off line folder file settings Click on Compact Now. 

For user's of Microsoft Office Outlook 2010

• Firstly Clean your Deleted Items folder by deleting unwanted data from your delete item folder items
• In the Ribbon go to file tab and Select Info tab in the Menu. 
• Point to Accounts Settings tab Tap on Account settings. 
• Now select Microsoft Exchange Server & Click on Change. 
• Select More Settings & go to Advanced tab. 
• Select Off line Folder File Settings. 
• Start compaction  

Automatic Background Compaction:- This process run ideally in the background after meeting following conditions.

• Running Outlook.
• Your computer must free from other CPU-intensive tasks (Copying or downloading files)

These above mentioned steps are valid for Outlook 2003, 2007 & 2010 to compact OST file. For new version of Outlook, there is no need to compact OST file, as it is automatically compressed by 40 % of its original file size.

Let’s Meet the New MS-Outlook - MS Outlook 2013

MS Outlook is one of the most powerful & frequent application used by users. Microsoft releases a new version of Outlook named Microsoft Outlook 2013. In new version of Outlook, there is complete new look & feel with three different background colors i.e. white, dark grey & light grey. It’s a better application all around with new wide-ranging features. Here are all the change & enhancements of 'MS-Outlook:

The new version of 'MS-Outlook comes with new features like:-

Attachment Reminder: Sometimes it may happen that you forgot to attach your file and send it to respective person. MS-Outlook fixes this problem by providing attachment reminder feature. When you compose your email & refer to upload attachments and hit for sending then a pop up for attachment reminder appear to remind you about the attachment. User can also turn on & off Attachment reminder by selecting “Don't show this message again” in the Pop up window.

Social Networks: MS-Outlook 2013 provides you facility of connecting your social networking account (Facebook, LinkedIn,) with your MS-Outlook account. After configuring Outlook with your social media account, you will get update from the people present in your social network friend’s list. To take advantage of this incredible feature, run Outlook 2013 in Cache Exchange Mode with windows Desktop search.

Outlook Data Files: In earlier version of MS-Outlook, when you connect Outlook with exchange, the file size of OST file is quite large but in MS-Outlook 2013, a new compressed MS-Outlook data file (OST) is created whose size is 40% small as compared to previous OST file. If you want to avail this feature follow “Outlook Policy group Template”.

Older Version OUTLOOK coexistence: You can also run MS-Outlook 2007 & 2010 with this new version of MS-Outlook 2013 but not at the same time. One thing user should keep in mind that this feature is not compatible with MS-Outlook 2003. To get benefit from this feature, Click to run version of MS-Outlook 2013 so that user will be able to run 2007 & 2010 side by side with Outlook 2013.

Message Preview: You can take a quick look at your message and find out which message needs more priority .User can also use quick commands to perform quick actions like(delete, mark, flag or unflag) by clicking on image present in image list.

Weather Bar: By placing 'weather bar' to your calendar, you will get complete weather forecast for a specific day or for specific location or forecast of coming three days. There is no need to switch to check about the weather forecast to schedule a meeting quickly. You can also add or delete a city to your Weather Bar List

Sky Drive: - Sky drive act as a cloud and permit user to upload & synchronize files and access from a local device or a web browser. It offers 7 GB of free storage for new users. In MS-Outlook 2013, you can connect your MS-Outlook 2013 account to your Sky drive .When you start your 2013 application then your sky drive details are displayed in top left corner and user can choose sky drive as its default location to save data.

Overall, Outlook 2013 is a great application with wide variety of new advanced features. I will give 4 stars out of 5 to this application.

Steps to connect Social Network Account (Facebook) with Outlook 2013?

Now a days, Social media sites are more popular among users than other type of sites. Just because of the increasing popularity of social media sites, users demand for social media connectivity in every apps or software which they are using in their daily life. Microsoft introduced a new advanced feature in Outlook 2013 that helps you to integrate many social features & provides tremendous social media connectivity features like importing contacts, chatting with social media friends etc.

In today’s world, Every Person have their profile on multiple social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn etc & you can easily find out your friends Contact information in your social media account. The Outlook 2013 can import your friend’s contacts from Social Network account to Outlook.com account & you can easily send a message or email to your friend without login to your Social Network account. For this, you only need to have social network connectivity with your Outlook .com account. We can connect most of the social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn and can follow our friend’s activity precise from the Outlook desktop Interface. Here I am taking example of facebook account.

So let’s have a look at how it can be implemented:

Steps to Add Face book Account

1 Start Your Outlook 2013 Application

2 Go to File Menu & Click on Info

3 After clicking on Info, Go to Account Settings & Check for Account & Social Network Settings.

It displays a list of Social Network accounts; you can choose Social Network Account as per your choice. In this, I am choosing face book. After Clicking on the Face book checkbox button, click on finish.

4. Now it will ask for your login information. Fill Your Login details and click on connect button to set up connection.

5. After clicking on connect, connection will occur then click on Close button.

6:- Now You will be able to see all the activities like contacts, pictures, images when you start interacting with your friends. To check recent activities, Click on what's new .You will get all updates from the person. You can also update your status by using 'Status Update' option.

You can also connect your other favourite social network by using above steps.

How to Synchronize your MS-Outlook Calendar to Windows Phone?

Synchronization is the process of establishing consistency of data flow between source location to destination location or vice versa. If you are an Outlook user then this process can help you in your daily work routine. Every time, it is not possible for any user to turn on the system & start Outlook application to check the schedule for the whole day.

         If you synchronize your MS-OUTLOOK account with your Windows phone then you can access your important information anywhere at any time. You can check your schedules such as important meetings & can also set other reminders like reminder for paying the bill, policy premium submission and many more activities through this process.

Synchronization Types:

One Way Synchronization: In One way synchronization, updated data is copied from a 'source' location to destination, but no data are copied back to the source location.

Two-Way Synchronization: In two-way synchronization, updated files are copied in both directions, i.e. from source to destination and vice versa for keeping the two locations identical to each other.

E.g. synchronizing your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to windows phone is the proper example of two way synchronization.

To proceed, firstly MS-OUTLOOK calendar is transferred to Microsoft accounts and then from Microsoft account to your Windows Phone.

Necessary Steps to perform Synchronization:

There are two methods of synchronization:

• With Exchange.
• Without Exchange.

Step 1. Mail Server Check Point:

To perform operation, firstly check which mail server you are using:

           It's with Exchange

                OR

            It's Without Exchange

Follow these Steps to check mail server: In case of MS-Outlook 2010:

• Start your Computer
• Run Outlook 2010 e-mail application on your computer
• Move the cursor to File Menu.
• Click on Info.
• After Clicking Proceed to Account Information section,
• In Account Information Section Click on Account Settings,
• Choose your Account Settings.
• After the Name, Check for the account Type.
• Now, check for your email address
• Look if Microsoft Exchange is listed as the mail type or not.

In case MS-Outlook 2007

• Open your MS-Outlook application.
• Go to Tools
• Click on Account Settings.
• Below Name, look for the account Type.
• Search for your email address
• Confirm if Microsoft Exchange is listed as the mail type or not.

After confirming the mail server, proceed to next step.

Step 2. Now, Add Outlook Account to your Phone:

Using MS-OUTLOOK without Exchange:

• Start Application
• Flick left to the App list,
• Tap Settings
• After then tap Email + accounts.
• Tap to add an account
• Tap Microsoft account or Windows Live.
• It will ask for your e-mail address & Password.
• Enter your Email address & Password
• Sign in to your account

After signing your account, you can easily synchronize your calendar by using two methods:

1. Automatically keep your Outlook calendar synchronized with your phone. You can do this by using MS-OUTLOOK Hot mail Connector to move your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Microsoft Account.
2. Import your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Microsoft account by Manual process.

If Using MS-OUTLOOK With Exchange:-

• Start screen,
• Flick left to the App list,
• Tap Settings
• Tap Email accounts.
• Add an account
• After Adding Tap MS-OUTLOOK.
• Sign In to your account by filing your email address and password
• You will see MS-Outlook calendar should automatically sync to your phone.

The above written steps will help you to synchronize your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Windows phone.

All About Windows Live Mail

Windows live mail is an updated email client of Microsoft that is also known as Windows live mail desktop & Windows Live Hotmail. It's a free application provided by Microsoft with windows vista & also a part of Windows Live Essentials. Just like other email applications, Windows Live Mail also has its own way of storing information. You can easily download this email application from cnet site. Windows Live Mail used file format named as EML file to store information.

EML File: These files are plain text file that contains header information of every email along with the attachments. When a user creates an account on Windows Live Mail, automatically EML file get create on the basis of his login detail. This file can be easily open on a Notepad also.

EML File Extension: - File extension used to save EML file is .eml.

EML File Location

The default location of EML files:-

C:\Users\<user-login>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

File Size: File Size of EML file completely depends on the size of your hard disk .There is no predefined file size of EML file. User can also send high pixel images through this file as the file size have no limit.

Here are all Enhanced features of Windows Live Mail:

Enhanced features of Windows Live Mail are:-

• By using Windows Live Mail user can synchronize with Windows Live Contacts. Real time updates are available and user can easily synchronize updates with holding account.
• By Using Windows Live Mail user can send and receive photo images & can also send the URL of thumbnails to download photos.
• Integrate with RSS feeds, instant messaging & Calendar.
• Support Spam filtering & fast message search.
• Hope this article will help you to understand Windows Live Mail.
• User's can enjoy multi line message list.
• User can work in off line mode also by using Windows Live Mail.
• Allows you to store emails directly on your computer

The latest version of Windows Live Mail is 2012 which was released in August 2012. Here are all updated features of Windows Live Mail 2012:

• Support for Web-based email accounts including Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail Plus.
• Have Synchronization with Windows Live Contacts.
• Supports for RSS feeds.
• Emotions can be added in emails.
• Feature of In-line spell checking.
• Separate inbox folders for different POP accounts.
• Photo email feature in emails

I always preferred Windows Live Hotmail because it is one of the easy-to-use email applications that also help me to maximize e-mail security across multiple e-mail accounts.