Managing E-mail Message Space

How much space am I using?

To find out how your space usage (email quota) is distributed among your mail folders:

1. At the very top of your folder list, Right-click on Inbox - your_name
2. Choose Properties
3. In the General tab of the Properties window click the Folder Size button

How can I clean up my Deleted Items?

You have to periodically empty your Deleted Items folder.

You have a couple options:

1. Right-click on Deleted Items folder in your folder list and choose Empty Folder. Or, go to File | Cleanup Tools | Empty Deleted Items Folder
   OR
2. File| Options | Advanced | Under the 'Outlook start and exit section,' check the box to Empty Deleted Items Folder when exiting Outlook (i.e., every time you exit Outlook your Deleted Items folder will be dumped.)

NOTE: Once items are Deleted from your Deleted Items folder they are still user-recoverable for two weeks.

To restore something from the system Deleted Items folder to your Deleted Items folder:

1. Select your Deleted Items folder in your Folder List
2. Select the Folder ribbon and click Recover Deleted Items
3. Select the items you want to recover
4. Then click the Recover Selected Items icon on the toolbar

How can I clean up my Sent Items?

You don't have an Option for the Sent Items folder like you do for the Deleted Items to empty on exit. You're just going to have to delete items from Sent Items periodically. (And then delete them from the Deleted Items.)

A couple tips that might help you clean up your Sent Items:

1. Sorting your messages may help.
   You can sort on any column in the listing by clicking on Arrange By in the column header.
   Attachments are a big culprit in space usage. You can even choose Arrange By: Attachments to sort all of your messages with attachments to the top of the list.
2. To select multiple messages:
   • A block of messages -- Click on the first message, scroll down and Shift-Click on the last message in the block of messages you wish to select.
   • Selected messages not necessarily grouped together -- Click on the first message, and then Ctrl-Click on each individual message you'd like to select before clicking Delete.

How can I store my Sent Items offline?

By default a copy of every message you send goes to your Sent Items folder on the server and these messages can pile up and count heavily against your space usage, particularly if you send a lot of attachments [see below]. One option is to write a Rule that stores your Sent Items in Outlook Data Files, stored in your network space rather than on the e-mail server.

Once you have the following rule in place, you can then turn off the saving of messages to your server mailbox Sent Items folder -- File | Options | Mail |Under the 'Save messages,' uncheck "Save copies of messages in Sent Items Folder

Setting up Sent Items off-line

1. First, follow the instructions to create an Outlook Data File separate from your server mailbox.
   • In the Home ribbon select New Items | More Items | Outlook Data File
   • You will be prompted for a path to store this file. It is recommended that you save this file in your personal network space (N: drive) so the information is backed up nightly. By default, the file is named Personal.pst.
   • The folder should then show up in your Outlook Folder List in its own section (with its own Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, ...) below your Mailbox section of Outlook.
2. Second, create a folder in your Outlook Data File for storing your Sent Items.
   • Right-click on your Outlook Data File and select New Folder.
   • You can call the folder what you like, for now we'll call it "Offline Sent Items."
3. Now, you need to write the Rule to save Sent Items to the desired folder in your Personal Folders.
   • File | Manage Rules and Alerts
   • Click the New Rule... button on the left hand side
   • Highlight "Apply rule on messages I send" and click the Next button at the bottom of the page
   • Check the box "Marked as importance" and then that statement will show up in the bottom of the box.
   • Click on the link "importance" and select Normal.
     (This rule will only apply for messages you send of normal importance. If you use the other priorities, then you will need to create a similar rule for each of those importances.)
   • Click the Next Button
   • Check the box "move a copy to the specified folder" and then that statement is added to the rule at the bottom.
   • Click on the link "specified" and choose the "Offline Sent Items" folder under your newly created Outlook Data File. Click OK. 
   • Now click Finish.
4. Now you can test your rule by sending yourself mail and seeing if the message ends up in the Outlook Data File, Offline Sent Items folder.
5. If it was successful, then you can remove the automatic saving of messages to the Sent Items folder
   File | Options | Mail |Under the 'Save messages,' uncheck "Save copies of messages in Sent Items Folder

How can I remove attachments from my Sent Items?

You can remove attachments from a message but still leave the message in its current folder in your mailbox. Attachments will eat up your message space in a hurry.

You can remove attachments, or save them out to your network drive. To find messages with attachments, you might want to sort your Inbox temporarily by attachments. Click on Arrange By and select Attachments to sort all of your messages with attachments to the top of the list.

1. Removing attachments:
   • Open the message, so that the attachment icon shows at the top of the message.
   • Click on the attachment and press the delete key, or right click on the icon, and select remove.
   • When you close the message, you will be asked if you want to save changes. Select Yes, save changes.
2. Saving the attachment to a file:
   • Open the message, so that the attachment icon shows at the top of the message.
   • Right click on the icon and select "Save As...".
   • Give it a new name, preferably on your network drive, so that it can be backed up.
   • Once you have it saved, then remove the attachment from the message as shown above.