You use Microsoft Outlook to manage your email, your appointments, your contacts, and your to-do lists. In other words, you use it to manage your work life. So when this program doesn’t behave the way it’s supposed to, you have a nightmare.

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3. In the wizard, select Import from another program or file and click Next.

4. For the file type, for Outlook 2007, select Personal Folder File (.pst). For 2010, choose Outlook Data File (.pst).

5. On the wizards next page, click the Browse button and find the backed-up Outlook folder. Select the appropriate file (probably Outlook or Outlook.pst).

6. As you go through the rest of the wizard, select Personal Folders, make sure Include subfolders is checked, and click Finish to start importing your backed-up data.

Your Outlook Data Set Is Too Big and Cumbersome

If Outlook is slowing down, its probably time to shrink your Outlook.pst data file. By default Outlook 2007 can handle a 20GB data file, and Outlook 2010 can manage a 50GB one. You can increase those size limits–but frankly, youll get better performance by decreasing the size of the actual file.

The previous tip described how to find and open the folder containing the file. Do so to check its current size, and to see how the size changes as you follow the suggestions below.

Start by compacting the file, which removes empty space. In Outlook 2007, select File, Data File Management. Select outlook.pst, and then click Settings. Click Compact Now. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab, and then select Info in the left pane. Click Account Settings, and Account Settings again. In the Account Settings dialog box, click the Data Files tab. Select the file and click Settings, Compact Now.

If that doesnt shrink the file sufficiently, try archiving, which moves old messages and appointments to another .pst tile (the default is archive.pst). You first need to reach the AutoArchive dialog box. In Outlook 2007, select Tools, Options. Click the Other tab, and then the AutoArchive button. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab, and then choose Options in the left pane. In the Outlook Options dialog box’s left pane, click Advanced. Click the AutoArchive Settings button.

Once there, youll find plenty of options for what to archive.

You can also start archiving now, rather than waiting for the next time it happens automatically. In Outlook 2007, select File, Archive. In 2010, click the File tab and select Info. Click the Cleanup Tools button, then Archive.

The program has other tools for cleaning up email. In Outlook 2007, select Tools, Mailbox Cleanup to find them. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab and select Info. Click the Cleanup Tools button, then Mailbox Cleanup.

After youve done everything you can to archive and clean up your data, your Outlook.pst file will remain the same size–but it will have considerably more blank space. Compact it again to reap the benefits of your cleaning job.