Do you work in an office that uses Outlook on an Exchange server? Do you receive emails constantly telling you that you are over the size limit on your email box? Here are some suggestions for keeping your mailbox under the size limit.
There are 3 options for clearing out mail from your Outlook mailbox. The first is the easiest to maintain, but allows less customization than manual archiving.
• Auto-archiving: This option will run an archive program that can systematically move emails to your archive folders after they reach a certain age. It can be set to run every day or every 99 days. You can choose the “age” emails can reach before they are automatically archived as well, and there are options to either delete old emails or move them an archive folder.
To use: go to the Tools menu in your main Outlook window, then Options, click on the “Other” tab and then click “AutoArchive”. You can choose the location of the saved file that stores your mail in this box as well.
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• Regular archiving: This option allows you to archive using the same options as auto-archive, but only runs once and then is done. It will only keep your mailbox archived long-term if you run it periodically.
To use: go to the File menu and choose Archive. Make sure to select “Mailbox – (Your name here)” when selecting your archiving options. Then choose a date from which emails older will be moved to the archive folder. Then choose an archive file to move the items to or if you do not have an archive file already, choose a location and the archive function will create the file automatically.
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• Using personal folders to clean your mailbox manually: This method allows complete control over when your items are moved to your archive folder as well as allowing you much greater freedom to choose which subfolders the items are moved to, but it does require a lot of manual work to move the items. This system is easiest to use if you are maintain it often and don’t let your mailbox size get too large.
To use: If you do not have a personal or archive folder already you can go to File->New->Outlook Data File, choose “Office Outlook Personal Folders File" (.pst) and choose the location to create a personal file. You will then be asked about some options for the personal file. You can change the display name that will show up in Outlook in this window if you’d like to have it show differently for purposes of organization. (IE: 2007 Sent items). You can also create a password for the file if you need to—these passwords can’t be recovered, though, so make sure you remember it! Outlook 2003 asks about data encryption and Outlook 2007 does not. You can leave the setting set to default in Outlook 2003.
With this folder, you will have to manually move items to clean up your mailbox. You can create folders underneath it just like you do your regular mailbox, (right-click the folder you want to create a new folder under and hit “new folder”) and it gives you different options for organizing your saved mail. To move items to this folder, you can click and drag them (even whole folders), or you can right -click the item and choose “move to folder”.
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Note: The personal file is the same type of file as an archive file but is labeled slightly differently.
If you’re still having trouble maintaining your mailbox using one of these steps–especially if you’re archiving very frequently or cannot archive some items for business reasons–you may need to request a bigger mailbox size limit from your management.
