TIP 6: Use Mailbox Cleanup
Your Microsoft Outlook mailbox grows as you create and receive messages. To keep your mailbox manageable, you need another place to store — or archive — the old items that are important but not frequently used. You also need a way to automatically move those old items to the archive location and to discard items whose content has expired and is no longer valid.
Mailbox Cleanup (Outlook XP & 2003 only)
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on the Tools menu, click Mailbox Cleanup
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do any of the following:
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view the total size of your mailbox and of individual folders within it
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find items that are larger than a certain KB size
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find items older than a certain date
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view the size of your Deleted Items folder
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empty your Deleted Items folder.
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Archiving Email
Outlook can archive items after a set period of time. By default, all items are archived to a single file, which retains within it the folder structure of the Outlook folders from which the items originated. When items are archived, they are deleted from the Outlook folders.
Please Note: It is recommended that AutoArchiving not be used unless it is well understood as there is a serious risk of data becoming lost or difficult to find. This is especially important when working in student computer pools as data will be lost.
To archive items manually:
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on the File menu, click Archive
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specify whether to archive all folders using their AutoArchive settings
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use the default settings or per-folder settings you specified for individual folders
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archive an individual folder using the options you specify in this dialog box.
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If you decide you want archived items moved back into your main mailbox, you can import all the items from the archive file into their original folders or into other folders you specify, or you can manually move or copy individual items.
To archive items automatically:
Outlook can be set up to automatically archive items after a set period of time. If set, the AutoArchiving feature will, at regular intervals, copy all items older than a given time to a file on the hard disk. When this occurs, the items will be deleted from their Outlook folders. The existing folder structure is maintained in the Archive file.