Manage The Size Of Your Outlook Mailbox
By: Chad Sweely
The power of e-mail is one of the strongest ways to communicate a message to someone online, especially within the business world. Many businesses (especially ecommerce-based) utilize e-mail as the sole method of communication between their customers and themselves. With this in mind, businesses need a robust e-mail product to keep up with the high demand of e-mail, and Microsoft provides this product called Microsoft Outlook.
With e-mail being such a popular medium to communicate with, the more that you send and receive e-mail messages, the amount of free space decreases on your hard drive. To make sure that Outlook properly manages mail, a process called “compacting folders” will help you keep the e-mails you would like to save without compromising your hard drive’s free space. To compact the folders for the different sections of your Microsoft Outlook session, please follow the steps that I have provided below.
Compacting your personal folders:
- From the File menu, click on the Data File Management option. This will load the “Outlook Data Files” window.
- Under the Name, Filename, and Comment list, select the data file that you would like to compact, and then click on the Settings button.
- Within the “Settings” window that will appear, click on the Compact button to automatically compact the data file that you have selected.
Compacting your offline folder:
- After you have deleted any unwanted e-mails, empty the Deleted Items folder.
- From the Tools menu, click on the Account Settings option. This will load the various account settings pertaining to the e-mail accounts that you have set up.
- Within the list that will appear, select the “Microsoft Exchange Server” option, and then click on the Change button.
- From the window that will appear, click on the More Settings button, and then select the “Advanced” tab.
- Under the “Advanced” tab, click on the Offline Folder Settings and then Compact Now.
Always be sure to perform these tasks on a routinely basis so that you can savor as much free space as you can with the many e-mail messages that you receive and archive.