Death Inc

Archiving my emails dues to massive pst files.
Out of curiosity I noted the file sizes before I archived.
I set the date to archive anything older than July first 2011 to a new pst file.
To my surprise the original pst file remained exactly the same size down the the kilabyte, and I now have an additional pst file about the size I was expecting at 1.6 gig.
I've scrolled through my two most popular folders, and found that emails from 1/1/11 - 1/7/11 are indeed gone, but from somewhere there are emails from 2009 in there?
I tried compressing the files and it did nothing. I just manually deleted all the 2009 emails from the 2 folders I mentioned, but I don't want to do that for every folder(I might have 100).
I'm clearly missing something, I don't understand how I have gotten rid of half the emails, but the file is the same size?

You are missing that the archive function is highly unreliable.
Move the PST file as well to free up resources and speed your computer

To answer my own query if anyone cares.
I used the compact button, and it did nothing, basically acknowleged being clicked, then I emptied my deleted emails, and hit the compact button. Compacting began, and approximately 16 hours later I figured it wasn't going to work, so I found and used the pst repair tool in windows, and it had some errors which were fixed. Then I used the compact button again, I checked it 20 hours later and teh compact had finished, and my pst file is now only 1.6 gig. Not sure if it took 5 minutes or 19 hours and 59 minutes, but somewhere in there it finsihed.
On a slightly side note, I had read in a lot of places that PST files get glitchy after 2 gig, but the maximum size is 20 gig. Also lots of folders and sub folders used to file emails will slow down the responsiveness of Outlook.

I Care...

Oh and the 2 gb limit was in older versions... You should be ok with a bigger one with 2007 or 2010.

Haha