26 gig Ost file

I know some will disagree with me, but...I've been saying for years..."Outlook and GMail (IMAP) are like oil and water, they don't mix!" Outlook can work "OK" for smaller mailboxes, but as they grow in size, IMAP is just not a good protocol. Too many times I've seen Outlook barf, fart, puke, and self destruct...when mailboxes get around 20 gigs...and larger...with GMail.

Outlook is designed for Exchange...support for POP and IMAP sloppily added as an afterthought.
We won't support the combo. Granted, we're a Microsoft house, and at this time not a Google partner, we do have a handful of customers on Google Workspace, but we discourage use of Outlook with it...it simply costs our helpdesk waaaaaay too much time.

And if you use a proper business grade email solution, you SHOULD be able to maintain and easily use large mailboxes. Heck for many years mine has been larger than 25 gigs...with Exchange.

Web browser, like Google Chrome!
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Too many times I've seen Outlook barf, fart, puke, and self destruct...when mailboxes get around 20 gigs...and larger...with GMail.
Click to expand...

Which, even to me, is utterly unsurprising. And I stand by my earlier assessments that if you've got over 20 GB in email, you've got some housekeeping to do that's long overdue.

But the reason that I routinely disagree that IMAP is bad with Outlook is that I, myself, and so far it seems all of my clients, never even come close to having 10 GB of long-term saved email. Stuff that came in with huge attachments (which generally can't happen these days, as most services require links to file sharing services if an attachment is above a small-ish size) promptly had the attachments saved outside the email ecosystem.

But, sure, I'll agree that Outlook and IMAP absolutely don't mix if you're a digital hoarder. But I'd be willing to bet Thunderbird and IMAP, eM Client and IMAP, and many other email clients and IMAP don't mix well if you are a digital hoarder, either. Just like Recycle Bin and Downloads folders are not meant for long term storage of large quantities of data, neither is email. To do so is something the designers of this stuff never anticipated anyone would do.
 
I would think the file could be broken up into smaller PST files if they really must retain things as contact and calendar shouldn't be 26gig alone so maybe split contacts and calendar into 1 then split emails into 1 per year. It will be a process but best option and once you begin the process it will get easier with each off loaded chunk. I did this once for an executive who "had" to keep all his emails but this executive was like many others they also kept items in the deleted items folders and recycle bins like those were storage.
 
johnrobert said:
also has a 25 gig PST file attached as default for his contacts and calendar
Click to expand...
That's just crazy. For just contacts and calendar....it should not be even a fraction of that size.
So...Outlook trying to load a 25 gig database....plus cache another 20+ gigs of email....how much RAM is in this system? Think about it for a bit....whatever Outlook can load in ram...and when it runs out, the rest is virtual memory...pagefile.sys. That just crushes Outlook performance.
 
fincoder said:
Sloppily added in 1998? Maybe, but they've had a long time to improve on IMAP support.
Click to expand...
Yet....it still blatently sucks. And...well, Outlook is first and foremost designed to be monogamous with Exchange Server. It's features celebrate that marriage. This whole mess the OP has....a) ...bogs down. b) calendar is separate in a PST. c) contacts is separate in a PST. That...flat out SUCKS...end of story. With 365..it's all stored up in the mailbox. The end user device is disposable, absolutely zero...zip...nada...that needs to be backed up on the end user device. Pour gas on it, light it on fire, get a new one, sign in, BOOM..it's all back. Massive mailbox capacity, all email, calendar, notes, contacts, email signature, nickname cache, all stored in the mailbox...instantly back in action on a new device! Gotta love it! Would rather mow my lawn with toenail clippers than support any_other_platform!
 
That's about half the size of my clients, most have them fully packed at 49G. I recommend doing a full back up first to a PST.
Also backup the calendar and contacts (might be in a "this computer only" file), the clients will want their missing calendars/contacts with a new profile.
Then look at the actual mbx size on Gmail. The size will show the All Mail and Important emails included in that size.
Compare with Outlook OST size and inbox/folder size. You might find something is very off.
Then I would be sure to turn off the labels in Gmail for All Mail and Important, that's just crappy extras that clients don't need in Outlook
Then set up a new profile in Outlook, the final OST will be probably around 10G or so.
Which is fine for Gmail/Outlook to work ok.
All set after that!
 
Contacts and calendar have to be in a PST then made default, there is no way they can be imported directly into Gmail OST --- just checking
 
Last edited:
Yes, it can be imported?

I suggested to him about a new profile at first, only one email in outlook, so pretty easy.
Another option would be to move files bigger than say 10 MB to an archive folder.

Thanks for the help
 
well, these are full reconfigs for my clients, 2 hours of work usually and a few calls/2 days. There might be other issues too causing the imap to not sync, such as VPN, firewalls, AV, etc. Those are not as common but it happens. I review all that in my onboarding. Also, a huge email might be stuck in the sych, you can do a search in the search folders for large emails. I'd move those to an archive for sure after you back up to a PST. Or you can wait until you have a new profile setup. I once found a 152 gig attachment continue to grow, the OST blew up until after 2 hours of figuring it out, I found the little beast.
 
@johnrobert also, I don't recommend using the OST (This computer Only) for calendar and contacts, but some clients are ok with it, if they need phone synching, then for sure offer a move to outlook.com or Exchange, easiest to configure. Gmail users live or die for it, and they have to have IMAP with that clunky as crap (This Computer Only) that cannot be backed up.

But I do set up clients with it anyway.
 
I do not agree that Outlook doesn't work with IMAP or POP however I do fully agree it does not work with Gmail. However exactly Gmail does their systems it has consistently been an issue in Outlook and I have never tried it in another email application. I suspect this is by design on Google's part to try and keep you inside their ecosystem using Gmail and GoogleDocs.
 
Blues said:
I do fully agree it does not work with Gmail.
Click to expand...

We have very, very different experiences. I've never had a moment's trouble with Gmail and Outlook, across years of Outlook versions, including both New Outlook [paid] and Outlook for Windows [unpaid new UI that replaced Mail, Calendar, and People Apps].

New Outlook is an absolute breeze with Gmail now that it is not only syncing email but also calendar and contacts without the need for any third party sync apps.
 
britechguy said:
We have very, very different experiences. I've never had a moment's trouble with Gmail and Outlook, across years of Outlook versions, including both New Outlook [paid] and Outlook for Windows [unpaid new UI that replaced Mail, Calendar, and People Apps].

New Outlook is an absolute breeze with Gmail now that it is not only syncing email but also calendar and contacts without the need for any third party sync apps.
Click to expand...
It has been years since I even tried most clients never have tried or already moved into Googles systems and don't use Outlook so good to hear it has improved but my point was the bashing of Outlook with IMAP and POP was not universal so probably not about those and more about other systems that are vendor specific
 
Current versions of Outlook have full support of Google Mail along with support for Google's modern authentication platform. It's a well supported solution, because Microsoft Office Apps, are almost always sold to Google Workspace customers.

Heck... it's so common that's why I argue it's silly for orgs to base themselves on Google! You have to have all the risks of M365 anyway... you may as well just shed Google and all the risks that come with it and concentrate your investments in Microsoft.
 
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