I have attempted to find the answer to this question by searching this
group, but to no avail....

Until recently I was running Outlook 2003 with a single pst file.
However, given that it has reached 800MB, and since I wanted to split
the storage of personal and work emails, I decided to create 2
additional pst files ('personal' and 'work'). I did just that,
following which I moved the relevant folders from within my Inbox
structure to the two personal folders.
To my suprise the original .pst file did not change in size. I shut
down, restarted. I also tried to compact it, which brought it down to
approx 500MB (from 800MB). Given that, AFAIK, it only holds my address
book, calendar and about 20 emails in the inbox, I don't understand
why it is still so large?

could someone shed some light on this?

thank you kindly.