Mailbox Management - How To Reduce the Size of Your Outlook 2007 Exchange Mailbox
It is good practice to periodically clean out your Outlook email folders. Not only does this make it easier for you to locate messages, it also frees up space on our Exchange server so that it functions properly. This Computing Tip will show you what causes a mailbox to grow and how to bring it down to a more manageable size. Please follow the steps below to check your mailbox.
Remember, if you have ideas for the Computing Tip of the Week, please send them to Pat Fellows or Karen Franker.
Reminder - The new UW Colleges/UW Extension training web site is located at: http://www.uwex.uwc.edu/it/instruct-support/training.cfm . There users will find links to many useful Office 2007 training documents, videos, and web sites. We encourage you to check out this site first when you have questions about Office 2007.
For most of the procedures, start by going to Tools > Mailbox Cleanup.
View Your Mailbox Size
Click on View Mailbox Size. If your Total Size is greater than 250,000 KB you should delete some files.
Delete Old Messages From Inbox
1. Tools > Mailbox Cleanup.
2. In the Mailbox Cleanup window click on “Find items older than” and enter the desired number of days; click Find.
3. In the Advanced Find window, scroll down to find the oldest messages. To delete multiple messages at once, click on the first item to delete, then hold the Shift key and click on the last item to delete. This will select all items between the clicks. Last, press Delete on your keyboard. To delete multiple items which are not next to each other in the list, press and hold the Ctrl key while clicking on the desired items to delete.
Delete Messages With Attachments
Attachments take up a lot of space. We highly recommend that if you wish to keep an attachment, you right-click on it in an open message and select Save As… from the pop-up menu to save it to your network drive; then delete the message. To find messages with attachments:
- Go to Tools > Instant Search > Advanced Find.
2. Click on the “More Choices” tab. Then click “Only items with: one or more attachments” followed by “Find Now” to locate any message with an attachment.
3. Delete any messages that you can.
4. If you want to retain a message but not its attachment, open the message and right-click on the attachment; then select “Remove”.
Delete Sent Items
The quickest way to clean out the Sent Items folder is to arrange it by date so that the oldest messages are on top. Click on the Sent Items folder to display the list of messages, then click to select the messages that you wish to delete.
Remove Deleted Items Manually
1.
Click on the Deleted Items icon.
2. Highlight file names to delete and press Delete on your keyboard.
To empty all items in your Deleted Items folder, right-click on the Deleted Items icon. Select Empty “Deleted Items” Folder.
Empty Deleted Items Automatically
To set this feature, go to Tools > Options, click the tab labeled “Other”, and click next to “Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting.” Last, click on OK.
Special thanks to Karen Franker for providing this tip.
As always, suggestions are welcomed and Computing Tips are appreciated. Send them to Pat Fellows and Karen Franker