CommuniGate Mail Archiving and Cleanup with Outlook 2007

Transcription

1 CommuniGate Mail Archiving and Cleanup with Outlook 2007 Some users are hitting quota limits in CommuniGate accounts. In other words, there are too many s in their account folders on the server. Here are some methods that will help keep your mail under control and under quota. AutoArchive Cleaning Up Mail Folders (Inbox, Sent, etc.) Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages Microsoft has developed instruction videos that can be found here: Manage your mailbox I: Find its size and trim it down Manage your mailbox II: Understand your choices for storing Manage your mailbox III: Move or copy messages to Personal Folders Manage your mailbox IV: Archive old messages Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages To get the full benefit of these videos, you will need speakers or a headset. Even without sound you can read the text (it matches the audio). One thing to keep in mind as you clean up your mailbox is whether retaining copies of all those s is necessary. If you really need to keep them, they can be stored in other locations. Another consideration is how long you need to keep the messages. Some may need to be retained for 90 days or longer, but others can be deleted immediately. The default size limit of a normal CommuniGate User account is 200 MB. When the size of your mailbox reaches 90% (180 MB) capacity you will receive an message to warn you that you are approaching the limit. You can easily check the size of your folders. At the bottom of the Navigation Pane, click Folder List. At the bottom of Folder List, click Folder Sizes. The Folder Size dialog box shows the sizes of each mail folder. If you exceed the limit you will no longer be able to send or receive mail until you delete or move some of the s. This total size is calculated by adding the sizes all of the s in all the

2 Understanding how much mail you have accumulated 2 folders together. This includes your Inbox, Sent, and Trash folders. Attachments are included in the size calculation. For example, you may receive an from a colleague that is less than 5 KB depending on what they actually wrote, while the total size of the may be greater than 5 MB because of an attachment. Understanding how much mail you have accumulated name may be easier by viewing the following table. number of bytes amount of text kilobyte (KB) 2 10 or 1,024 1/2 page megabyte (MB) 2 20 or 1,048, pages or 1 thick book Since the default user account is 200 MB, this equals 209,715,200 characters or approximately 100,000 pages. So if you are getting close to the limit this means you have an enormous amount of on the server. This may not mean that you have that many pages of . What is more likely is that you may have many attachments, such as pictures, that consume a large amount of space. AutoArchive A special note about using AutoArchive: when you use this feature and select to move the items archived, s that are archived are no longer stored on the CommuniGate server but are stored on the hard drive of your computer. When you use this feature and select to permanently deleted the items archived, s that are archived are no longer stored anywhere. You should take measures to be sure you have a backup copy of the archive folders. Microsoft offers a free add-on for Outlook that will allow you to backup your personal folders. You can get it here Download pfbackup.exe. For campus users at Jaars and Dallas with MAPI accounts the AutoArchive feature is turned off (at the folder level) by default. It does work with MAPI accounts. There is some documentation about this in the Outlook 2007 Basic Reference Manual, pages 29 to 31. If you installed Outlook on your personal computer AutoArchive is enabled by default. AutoArchive does not work with IMAP accounts. You can however move items from this type of account into your Local Personal Folders or set rules so that when mail is received a copy is automatically created in Local Personal Folders on your computer. AutoArchive does work with POP3 accounts. This may be the case with your personal computer. If your account is setup to receive with this type of account your messages are automatically downloaded and removed from the server to your personal computer, unless Leave a copy of messages on the server is selected in your account Advanced settings tab. (Tools, Account Settings, Your User Account, Change, More Settings, Advanced)

3 AutoArchive 3 To use the AutoArchive feature to move the items archived: 1. Click Tools, and then Options 2. Select the Other tab. 3. Click the AutoArchive button. 4. Change Run AutoArchive every 14 days to 1 day. 5. Uncheck Prompt before AutoArchive runs. 6. If you would like to select a location to store the archive other than the default, click the Browse button. 7. Click Apply these settings to all folders now. Some folders will need custom settings, described in the next section of this document. 8. Click OK, and then click OK again to close the Options dialog box.

4 AutoArchive 4 Note that all messages older than 6 months will purged daily from your folders and put in your archive folders. Note: MAPI Users check each individual folder s AutoArchive settings. The settings in Tools Options AutoArchive will only apply to folders set to AutoArchive according to the default settings. These settings will not apply to folders with AutoArchive set to Do not archive. (SEE Page 5) You may want to change the location of the storage folder as referenced in step 6 above, to make it easier to copy or backup the archive file to a location other than your hard drive such as a CD or USB flash drive. This is not a recommendation. The information provided is for convenience only. You can navigate to the location using the following steps. 1. Click on File, and then Data File Management 2. Select Archive Folders in the list and then click Open Folder Care should be taken not to delete the file from this location. You can right click on the file name and select Copy in order to copy the file to another location. Archive files are not automatically backed up unless your backup software is configured to do so. The default location is in a hidden folder and will not be visible in the Windows Explorer file system unless your Folder Options allow you to view hidden files. The default location under Windows XP is: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst. For Windows 7 the location is: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst. Username is your Windows logon name.

5 Customizing AutoArchive settings for Individual Folders 5 Customizing AutoArchive settings for Individual Folders You will want to check each individual folder s Auto Archive settings to ensure that Auto Archive is set the way you want for each of your folders. There are certain folders such as the Trash folder that should not be auto archived to Move the items archived. Instead the Trash folder should be auto archived to Permanently delete old items. Check the Calendar folder settings. You may want to set the Calendar to Do not archive or to Permanently delete calendar items older than 12 months, rather than 6 months. You may have other folders that you do not want to archive or you wish to change the defaults for. This example will use the Trash folder as an illustration. 1. Begin either by clicking Folder List in the lower left area of your main Outlook interface, or by clicking Go on the pull down menu and then click Folder List. 2. Right click on the folder name you intend to use custom settings for, and then click on Properties. We will use the Trash folder for this example but the same process can be used for the Calendar or other folders as noted at the beginning of this section.

6 6 3. When the dialog box opens, click on the AutoArchive tab. 4. If you are modifying the Trash folder properties, we recommend that the Trash folder be set to: Archive this folder using these settings, older than 2 Days, Permanently delete old items. If you are modifying the Calendar folder properties: Archive this folder using these settings, older than 12 months, Permanently delete old items. 5. For other folders, select the radio button Archive this folder using these settings: 6. Clean out items older than X Months can be changed by increasing or decreasing the number, or by changing the interval from Months, to Weeks or Days. 7. You may specify a location other than the default to store the archive.pst for this folder by selecting Move old items to: and then click Browse. OR you may specify Permanently delete old items. 8. Click OK. Note: if you change the default location in step 7 a new unique archive file will be created. You should name the new archive.pst file to a unique name that matches the folder you are working with. For example, if you are changing the defaults for a folder named Wycliffe to a different location, the archive file could be named Wycliffe_archive.pst.

7 Cleaning Up Mail Folders (Inbox, Sent, etc.) 7 Cleaning Up Mail Folders (Inbox, Sent, etc.) Here is one way to simplify the task of cleaning up your folders. Change your view so sorting by Size, Subject, From, etc is easier to manage. 1. Click View. 2. Point to Reading Pane. 3. Select Off. Now your list of s will be arranged in a table format. You can select any of the headings to quickly sort the list of s for any folder you have selected. Default headings are From, Subject, Received, Size, and Categories. Size was selected for this example. The results are grouped from large to small, classified as: Huge (1-5 MB), Very Large (500 KB - 1 MB), Large ( KB), etc. In this way you can very quickly locate in each folder the largest of your e- mails, those that are taking the most space on the server. You can also sort s from individuals by clicking on the From column. If you receive a number s from a particular individual containing attachments that are quite large, this will give you an easy way to isolate these so that you can save the attachments to a folder of your choice. For example, you might create a folder in your My Documents folder named Joe User to store all of the attachments from him.

8 Cleaning Up Mail Folders (Inbox, Sent, etc.) 8 Using Search Folders Search folders provide another way to find large messages. In the Navigation Pane on the left side of your Outlook interface, you ll find an item at the bottom of your Mail Folders list called Search Folders. 1. Click on the + beside Search Folders. 2. Click on Large Mail. If you are viewing as described on the page you will now find a new heading after Categories named In Folder. The list will be sorted from largest to smallest the first time that you do this. If you click on another heading the list will sort according to that. Outlook will remember which heading you selected the next time you open the program. Although these results are displayed as a folder, the contents are simply pointers to the original in its original folder. However, if you delete an from this search folder it will be deleted from the containing folder. How to Create a Custom Search for Large Messages/Attachments 1. In Outlook, on the File menu, point to New, and then click Search Folder to open the New Search Folder dialog box, or press CTRL+SHIFT+P. 2. Scroll down till you get to the Organizing Mail section under Select a Search Folder: 3. Click Large Mail. 4. Under Customize Search Folder, click the Choose button.

9 Cleaning Up Mail Folders (Inbox, Sent, etc.) 9 5. Specify the size in kilobytes for individual e- mails. 6. Click OK. 7. Click OK. The new search folder will have been placed in your list of Search Folders in the Navigation Pane. 8. Right click on Larger than 500 KB. 9. Click Customize this Search Folder 10. Click Browse, select the folders that you want searched, and then click OK two times. You can delete any custom searches created like this later. Deleting the search will not delete the contents of the s. However, as stated previously, deleting an from the list of a custom search will delete the from its original folder.

10 Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages 10 Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages It is important to understand the difference between local Personal Folders and folders on the CommuniGate server. Creating extra folders on the server does not result in free space. These folders are examples of local personal folders that were added to store from specific accounts or for a specific purpose. These local personal folders are created by default when Outlook is installed. (Not always the case with MAPI, see below) These are default folders created on the CommuniGate server for a user. If you create folders or subfolders here you will still be using space on the server. If you do not have any Personal Folders already, you can create one. 1. Click File. 2. Point to New. 3. Click Outlook Data File

11 Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages 11 The New Outlook Data File dialog box will open. 4. Select Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst). 5. Click OK. The Create or Open Outlook Data File dialog box will open to the default location. 6. Type a file name. 7. Click OK. Now that you have created a Personal Folders mail folder you can begin to create folders and subfolders within that folder. See the next page.

12 Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages 12 You may create as many folders and subfolders as you wish, naming them in ways that are meaningful to you. Here s how to do it. 1. In the Navigation Pane right click on Personal Folders 2. Click New Folder The Create New Folder dialog box will open. 3. Type a name for your new folder. 4. Click on Personal Folders in the area Select where to place the folder: to highlight it, or click the plus mark in the box next to that to select a sub folder. 5. Click OK. The new folder now appears in your list of folders in the Navigation Pane. Be sure to set the AutoArchive feature for this new folder to your desired settings. You can manually move s from your CommuniGate folders into the new folders or you may create rules to move or copy the s automatically after they arrive. On the next page there is an example of how to manually move large items. The items were selected using techniques from pages 7 & 8 of this document.

13 Creating Local Personal Folders to Store Messages Select multiple items by clicking the first item in the list, and then while holding the Shift key, click the last item in the list. 2. Right click anywhere on the highlighted list. 3. Select Move to Folder 4. Scroll to the folder you want to use and select it. 5. Click OK. Using the above as an example, a better idea would be to create a folder under My Documents named Albert G, save the attachments, and then delete the s. And as a final note to all this, consider deleting older s as much as possible even if you use the AutoArchive feature. The reason for this is that there is a limit to the size of the PST files that you will be using for your Personal Folders and Archive Folders. For Outlook 2007 the default is 20 GB. While it is likely that you may never exceed that limit, it is a good practice to clean out your boxes anyway.