Do you have duplicate items in Outlook PST files? This may create some serious problems for you if you don't remove Outlook duplicates. Having duplicates of any mailbox item, be it an email message, contact or anything, will surely increase the size of PST file. If you have been using Outlook client since long, you must be aware of PST file size limit. An oversized PST file is prone to corruption, and you may lose all your crucial email messages and everything stored in the file forever. Outlook duplicate items are the primary reason behind behind an oversized PST file.
What are Outlook duplicate items?
Have you ever come across a situation where your Inbox folder is having duplicate email messages containing same subject, timestamp, and other information. A duplicate item can be anything in an Outlook data file, aka PST (personal storage table). It may be an email message, a contact, calendar entry, task, journal, appointment and even an attachment. Do you have any idea why or how duplicate items are created in PST files. The most common reasons are discussed below:
Reason #1: The primary reason behind creation of duplicate item is corrupt email on Server. This will generate duplicate items when Outlook starts its Send/Receive process.
Reason #2: If synchronization between Outlook profile and your phone/tablet is executed incorrectly, this may also cause duplicate emails and other data in your PST file.
Reason #3: If Leave a copy of the messages on the server box is checked on your account settings, then Outlook will create duplicate emails at each Send/Receive process.
Reason #4: If the email server or Outlook fails to respond during a Send/Receive process, next time when you will perform synchronization, this will download the previous email again and cause you duplicate items.
Why should you remove Outlook duplicate items?
If you're having duplicate items in your PST file, it'll increase the file size. How? Just for an example: your Inbox folder contains 1000 email messages, each 1 MB. This means the size of your Inbox folder is more than 1 GB. But if you're having duplicates of any those 200 or 300 email messages, this will increase the size of your Inbox folder. In the same way, if you're having duplicates in other mailbox folders, this will increase the entire PST size. PST file has a size limitation issue which means a PST file can't store data more than its definite size limit. ANSI and Unicode are two formats in which Outlook saves PST files. ANSI PST has a maximum size limit of 2 GB while Unicode can store 20 GB to 50 GB mailbox data. You must remove Outlook duplicate items from PST files in order to avoid corruption and data loss.
How to remove Outlook duplicate items?
There are two methods I can recommend here to Outlook users. First there's an easy manual trick that can remove Outlook duplicate items from PST files without requiring any paid software. It only requires Microsoft Outlook client, little knowledge and enough time. Follow the steps given below:
Step 1: First of all, launch Microsoft Outlook client on your system. Now select the folder from which you want to remove the duplicate items.
Step 2: On the View tab, click Change View option.
Step 3: Now change the folder view to table type view.
Note: Click Manage Views... check the view mode which you're currently on, i.e. either folder view or table view.
Step 4: On the Manage All Views window, check the view type. Use the following combinations of views and fields:
Calendar with appointments
Contacts with phone list
Inbox with messages
Journal with entry list
Notes with notes list
Step 5: Now right-click the column heading, and then click Field Chooser in the options.
Step 6: At the top of Field Chooser, select a field from the list.
Step 7: Now drag down the Modified field to the table heading.
Step 8: The duplicate items you want to remove must have a unique date from the original set of items. Therefore, click the modified heading to sort the items by this field.
Step 9: Now select the items you want to remove. Finally hit Delete button to delete the selected items permanently.
The above steps you can perform manually to remove Outlook duplicate items from PST files. If it fails, doesn't work or takes more than enough time, you should consider using professional Outlook Duplicate Remover software.
Outlook Duplicate Remover Software
SysInfoTools Software provides you Outlook Duplicate Remover tool to remove Outlook duplicate items from PST files without causing any changes, alteration or damage to the original mailbox data. Manual trick will take more than enough time, but this software allows users to select single as well multiple PST files at the same time. It doesn't take much time, even the entire process is successfully completed within a few minutes. Software is available with free demo version, so that you can download it and evaluate it for free before purchasing its licensed version.
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