# Solved: Outlook 2007 send/receive very slow, freezing computer



## deb568 (May 26, 2011)

I was previously using Outlook express, and when the send/receive function ran (from blueyonder, pop3) it was always very quick and didn't interfere with any other program running on the computer.
Recently I upgraded some parts on the computer (operating system is XP), so decided to run Microsoft Outlook 2007 instead of express, mainly because of the archiving function.
Now though, the send and receive function is incredibly slow - 37 minutes for 63 items coming into the inbox - and worse still, it causes all the other programs open at the same time, including internet browsers, to freeze/work only intermittently.
I have turned off the addins, including the search indexer but this action has had no impact on the speed of the receive function.
Any suggestions on how I can fix this?


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## DaveA (Nov 16, 1999)

What kind of ISP connection do you have?

What protection programs are you running, ie., AV, spam blocker and etc?


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## deb568 (May 26, 2011)

Kaspersky. I have de-selected all the addins except for the Kaspersky anti virus one. But I was running this before, when I was using Outlook Express. it didn't seem to slow anything down then. 

The ISP connection is 20MB cable broadband.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

How large is the PST file? If it gets too large it will bog everything down while email is downloading.


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## deb568 (May 26, 2011)

The PST file was 2.5GB. I'm archiving some of it, - now down to 1Gb or so, but even the archiving takes so long. To archive that small amount has taken all day and all night. Literally. More at the speed of a weight loss program (1 gram at a time....) than a computer program. I thought I was improving things going from the express version to the full version of Outlook. I didn't think I would be in a situation where the most data I can have unarchived is about a week's worth!

How big is the PST file allowed to be before the performance starts to degrade?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

I guess the limit is 20GB in Outlook 2007 so something else may be going on with the app itself. Do you have any rules set up to direct emails to other folders or forward, etc.?


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## deb568 (May 26, 2011)

20GB sounds reasonable, because i was already up to 2.5gb in Outlook express and never even noticed when the send/receive function was operating. My Outlook is quite a simple set up. Everything comes into the Inbox. Nothing gets automatically re-routed anywhere. It's just like Outlook Express - the only reason I changed is because I wanted to archive some of the stuff in it. 

Now, it receives messages a bit quicker than before, after archiving some of the stuff (1.2GB left), the indexing is on snooze so this doesn't seem to be the problem, but then it sits around "thinking" instead of coming straight out of the send/receive function. I'd love to know what exactly it is thinking about. 

The worst thing is when I run the send/receive, and certainly the archiving, nothing else works, neither other Microsoft office applications nor the internet. it just goes into a deep freeze. AND archives slowly while it's sleeping.


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## DaveA (Nov 16, 1999)

Since you have archived some of your PST have you "Compacted" the PST file?


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## deb568 (May 26, 2011)

The PST file compacts in the background when you delete items from it. Well, so the help text says, but I tried this just in case and it went very quickly I suppose that biot did get done. 

Now that most of the stuff has been archived and the indexing is complete, things are moving a lot faster. Though, at the end of downloading the messages when I do send/receive, there is this pregnant pause that last for around 15 seconds. Not really sure what this is - may just be indexing the new messages. 

So thanks to those who replied and your help with this. The solution seemed to be to archive most of the stuff and not just let it accumulate as per Outlook Express. Plus once it had everything indexed it seemed to be happier. i just tend to snooze the indexing now and set it off at the end of the day.


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## DaveA (Nov 16, 1999)

> there is this pregnant pause that last for around 15 seconds. Not really sure what this is -


I beleive that this pause is the act of deleting the downloaded emails from the server, and/or flagging that they have been downloaded, if you have selected that they be retained on the server.


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