So is it time to archive old mail? Is email eating up too much space on the server? Here are some quick and easy ways to find out what is taking up space, and archive that which is no longer needed.
NOTE: The target total size for a user mailbox is 300 MB. Please reduce the total size so that the total size is less that 300 MB.
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Determining folder size:1. Open Outlook and go to your Mail view. This is typically your default view when you open Outlook. It is pictured to the left. |
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2. Under All Mail Folders, right click on Mailbox - (your name), and select Properties for "Mailbox - (your name)". |
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3. The Mailbox Properties window appears. Click on the Folder Size button located at the bottom of the properties window. |
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4. The Folder Size window appears and will report the total size for overall and for each folder and subfolder on the mailbox. Scroll down to review each folder and its size. As an example, the folders listed on the left, the Inbox is 88079K, which is 88 MB. The Inbox is a more than half of the total size: 141.4 MB. Focus on the folders that are occupying the majority of the total size. One easy way to reduce folder size is to remove any emails in that folder that have bulky attachments. Typically, attachments are the culprits when folders grow in size unexpectedly. |
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Archiving folders:1. Before starting the archiving process, you must first create a folder for the archives to go into. Open your I:\ drive, by double clicking MY COMPUTER on the desktop. Double click on the I:\ drive. Right click in the I:\ drive and select the option for New - Folder. A new folder will appear on the I:\ drive, rename this new folder to outlook. 2. To start the archiving process, click on File - Archive. 3. Select the radio button which says: Archive this folder and all subfolders. In order to do a more thorough job of archiving, select [Mailbox (your name)]. 4. Select an: "Archive items older than:" date. Typically, most archived email is OLDER than 3 months. Select a date that is convenient for your calendar. This date may have to be revisited if all mail has been archived and the total folder size for email is still out of the ordinary. 5. Select a folder to archive to. In the Archive file dialogue box, type: I:\outlook\archive(year).pst This fine path is very important since the archive needs to go into a safe and secure location. By placing the archive on the I:\ drive, it will be backed and archived to tape during the regular backups on the servers. 6. Click OK. Depending on the potential overall size of the archive, it might take from 5 minutes to many hours to complete the archive. |
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