How to Create Personal Folders in Outlook 2007

Information

Personal Folders are files that Microsoft Outlook uses to store emails locally on a computer. If you are approaching the size limit for emails stored on the Exchange server, Personal Folders are a perfect way to reduce the size of your mailbox while retaining those emails. Read more about size limits here

Creating a Personal Folder

1. Open Outlook 2007
2. Click Tools > Account Settings...
   
3. Click the "Data Files" tab
4. Click the "Add..." button
   
5. Click "Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)" to select it
6. Click OK
   
7. Select a location where you'd like to save the Personal Folders file. We suggest using an easy-to-find location such as a folder named "Outlook" within "My Documents". Once you have selected a location, type a name for the Personal Folder file (this is the name of the saved file on your hard drive, not the name that will display in Outlook), and click OK
   
8. To change the name that the Personal Folder will display in Outlook, type the desired name in the "Name" field.
9. To password protect your Personal Folder you may enter a password in the fields provided. For no password protection, just leave it blank.
10. Click OK
    
11. Click Close
    
12. You will now see the personal folder in the Mail Folders pane in the left column of Outlook
    

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Moving Items to Personal Folders

1. Find the email or folder you wish to move to you personal folder
2. There are two ways to move an Outlook item to a personal folder:

Right-click menu

1. Right-click the item
2. Click Move to Folder...
   
3. Select the personal folder by clicking it, then click OK