Outlook eMail Cleanup Information Technology Services September 25, 2012 Contact the ITS Helpdesk at 402-559-7700 or [email protected] with questions. Outlook 2010 – File > Info – Cleanup Tools Outlook 2007 – Tools > Mailbox Cleanup Outlook Cleanup Tools Page 1 of 4 H:\KLAURSEN\WORDDOCS\Outlook\Outlook Cleanup Tools.docx Ask yourself:  How big is my current mailbox? You are limited to 2 GB  How big are the emails? – arrange by size 1GB = 1024 MB 10MB = 10240 KB 1MB = 1024 KB 1KB = 1024 Bytes Big, probably the size of your entire mailbox if you send attachments and saved all your mails of the last couple of years This would be a message with a big attachment. The sending/receiving size limit of a message has often been set to somewhere between 10 and 20 MB. Normal size for a message with a small attachment Small, probably a mail with just some text in it Ways to clean up your email  Delete (goes to deleted items folder) o Skip the Deleted Items folder and get rid of the mail straight away by pressing DELETE use SHIFT+DELETE to delete the message permanently. o Outlook 2010 has a Delete All option from any folder  Deleted Items – Empty deleted items folder (right click) (items automatically delete after 7 days)  Junk E-Mail – Empty junk mail folder (does not delete automatically)  Inbox, Sent Items and other mail folders Large messages need to go first – Sort by size – All mail options Once your trash is empty, continue the cleanup process with first finding the largest chunks in the mailbox. In most cases you'll find that 20% of your mailbox items account for 80% of the size. If you are using Outlook 2003 or later, you can find these large chunks by using a Search Folder called "Large mail". If you do not have this folder, you can create it via;   Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 File-> New-> Search Folder… Outlook 2010 tab Folder-> button New Search Folder In the dialog that pops-up, select "Large mail" and set the "Show mail at least this large" option to 5120 KB (which is 5 MB). If not a whole lot of messages are found, you can reduce this to 3072 KB (3 MB). http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/cleanmailbox.htm#bits_and_bytes Moving email to a folder removes it from your inbox and may make it easier to find, BUT is still part of your email space. Drag and Drop to your Computer/Network Move email to a folder on your computer. This may require resizing your windows so that you can click, drag and drop onto a computer folder with both windows open. Otherwise you can right click and select Copy and then find your computer folder and right click and paste. This actually COPIES the message to your computer. You need to delete it from your email to free up space in Outlook. Remove attachments from messages. Open the message and right click on the attachment and select remove attachment. With Outlook 2010, you can also remove attachments from the Reading pane by clicking on the attachment and selecting Remove Attachment from the Attachments tab on the Ribbon. NOTE: All e-mail saved outside of Outlook Exchange should be on a secure network server. Refer to Retention and Destruction/Disposal of Private and Confidential Information Policy Outlook Cleanup Tools Page 2 of 4 H:\KLAURSEN\WORDDOCS\Outlook\Outlook Cleanup Tools.docx Clean up Conversations in 2010: If you are using 2010, you are probably using the Conversation Grouping, as that is the default view. This can be a great tool for saving space: 1. You can find all messages which have been replied to (if someone changes the subject, it begins a different conversation). 2. Expand the  to see all messages in the conversation. 3. Some conversations have “sub” conversations. Click the red dot to expand that conversation. 4. If you try to delete a specific message, it could delete the entire conversation. 5. Use Clean Up (located on the Delete grouping on the Home tab). This will leave only one copy of each message and remove duplicate messages in the thread. 6. Ignore a conversation that you no longer need to be a part of. This will place the conversation in the deleted items folder. Outlook Cleanup Tools for the Mac – Outlook 2011 - http://blink.ucsd.edu/technology/email/tasks/otlk11-clean-upmailbox.html Sent Items – delete attachments and consider sending Links in the future o o o Calendar – usually they are not large unless the entry contains attachments. You can sort by size in the list view of the calendar to find those – View > Change View > List Contacts – same as with Calendar – may want to remove duplicates too. Notes Outlook Cleanup Tools Page 3 of 4 H:\KLAURSEN\WORDDOCS\Outlook\Outlook Cleanup Tools.docx Convert messages to PDF If you have Outlook 2010, you must have Acrobat X to save as PDF. If you have Outlook 2007, you can use Acrobat 9 or later to save as PDF. From Outlook 2011, you can print to Adobe. From Outlook web (OWA), if you have Acrobat 9 or later, you can open individual messages and click the Printer icon, which takes to you a “Printable View” and from there you will have the Adobe to PDF icon, which will save the Web page (message) to a PDF. NOTE: All e-mail saved outside of Outlook Exchange should be on a secure network server. Refer to Retention and Destruction/Disposal of Private and Confidential Information Policy General Tips To Keep Your Mailbox Small  Don't store attachments in Outlook but store them outside your mailbox in a folder on your hard disk where it belongs. Example; My Documents folder, My Pictures folder, a corresponding Project or Programs folder, etc…  Send as few and small attachments as possible. If you know the receiver can also access the file on the same network like this <\\servername\sharename\foldername\filename.doc> or use Insert-> Hyperlink (set Word as the Email Editor to have a more user friendly interface for this option  If you need to send attachments, send them in a compressed format like zip-files. This will save you some bandwidth and the receiver some mailbox space; hopefully he/she will return you the favor.  Periodically check the size of the individual folders by using the Folder Size button in the properties of Outlook Today so you can react on a fast growing mailbox in time. This way you prevent the need to clean your mailbox for several hours at the end of the year and be able to do it with just minutes a week or even a month. 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