This could easily happen to anyone - one day you find yourself poking around in Outlook and you stumble upon the area where you can view your folder sizes. You know that place, right? At the bottom of the Folder List on the left side of your Outlook window you see a link that says Folder Sizes. You click on the link and as Outlook calculates just how much you have in there, you wait in anticipation. In a few short seconds Outlook displays "891,500KB". Yowza! That's a mighty big mailbox you got there! Just so you know, it's much larger than most I've seen. OK, enough of me making you feel guilty for not cleaning out your mailbox more often.
For starters you need to realize that typically, it's all about your email. Email in your Inbox, Sent Items folder, and any subfolders you've created for organizing and storing client or project emails.
Here are some things you can do to help keep your Outlook mailbox down to a manageable size:
1) The biggest hidden culprit - Your Sent Items folder. Are you keeping all those sent emails with large attachments? You already know you have the file on your computer because you attached it. Remove the attachment from the email. Can't remember if the feature is the same in 2003, but I did do a video demo podcast on this subject for Outlook 2007, called "Remove Large Email Attachments, but Keep the Email in Outlook 2007". Some users like to keep the email they send and receive for a fairly long time, and most of the time they just keep them in Outlook. Not the best practice, but hey, it's not the worst either. For those of you that do keep your emails in Outlook for a very long time, you may be faced with a storage issue at some point. In Outlook 2007, you have the ability to quickly and easily save the attachment to your computer, remove the attachment from the email, then create a little note for yourself telling you what you did with the attachment.
2) Sort your email by the Size field and see just how big many of those emails are. There's a good chance you really don't need some of them, and if you do, then save those attachments out of Outlook and onto your computer.
3) Always know that you can save any email out of Outlook and onto your computer, all the while keeping the email-type format. In a selected or open email go up to the File menu>Save As>change the file type to Outlook Message format (msg). Start creating a computer-based filing system for older client stuff rather than keeping it all in Outlook.
4) If you happen to have a SharePoint site, you can always archive those emails to a document libary. Document libraries can be email enabled so it's as simple as entering the SharePoint document library email address into the To field and off it goes. Gosh, I just love that feature in SharePoint.
5) Be diligent about what you keep and what you don't need to keep. Not every email you recieve is a keeper. Trust me. Want to know how I determine what I should keep and what could be discarded? I use email flags and color categories. If an email comes in that I need to follow up on some time that day, I'll click on the flag next to the email. A red flag appears and is a great visual indicator that I need to look at it again before deleting anything. At the end of the day I peruse my daily emails to look for red flags and do whatever follow up that needs to be done. When I'm done doing what I need to do I click on the red flag again and it turns into a checkmark. Another visual indicator that I'm finished with it. Some of these emails I still want to keep around for a bit, and that's where the color categories help. An Outlook 2007 feature, it's easy to give an email a color with a simple click, just like the flagging feature.
6) Don't forget to let the Archive feature do its job. I think the thing that scares people the most about archive is that they have no idea where the information goes, so they don't know how to get it back if they need it. Here's how to find out: right click on your inbox > left click on Properties > click on the AutoArchive tab > look in the middle part of this window where you see a file path that probably starts out as "C:\Documents and Settings....". This is where all the archived information will be stored. If it makes you feel better, write it down on a sticky and put it somewhere. If the day comes where you want to view the data in this archive, Outlook might already be displaying your Archive folder for you in your Folder List. If you don't see anything like that, no worries. Pull out your trusty sticky note, then go up to the File menu > Open > Outlook Data File > maneuver to the path you've written down and select the archive.pst file. It now opens in your Outlook session. You can view or even drag and drop some of those items back into your "active" Outlook folders.
Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC offers a wide variety of business services, to include: Productivity training and support for Microsoft Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services, Administrative Office Assistant services, and Podcast Production and Support services. She has more than 12 years of office administrative experience, with a primary focus on maximizing team collaboration and communication for daily work and managing projects.
As a Certified Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, she supports your internet marketing needs such as Website Analysis, Search Engine Marketing, Blogging/Podcasting/Social Media, Email Marketing, and Affiliate Marketing.
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