Faster Outlook v1. Faster Outlook. Managing and Archiving s

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1 Faster Outlook Managing and Archiving s Author: Hampshire HIS, ICT Training 2 Sterne Road Tatchbury Mount Calmore SO40 2RZ November 2010

2 Contents Introduction... 2 Strategy... 3 Policies size... 4 Saving and Deleting... 6 Saving s... 6 Deleting s... 7 Permanently deleting individual s from the Deleted Items folder... 8 Emptying the Deleted Items folder... 8 Automatically emptying the Deleted Items folder... 9 Attachment Management Saving Attachments without the Removing Attachments from s Archiving s What is Archiving? Archiving Viewing and Managing Archived Items Adding the archive folder Retrieving and Managing archived items Closing Archived folders Auto-Archive Notes: This guide gives instructions based on Outlook 2003/XP. In other versions, the principles still apply but the way to manipulate mails will be slightly different. This document assumes understanding of using MS Office and general IT ability - 1 -

3 Introduction This document explains how to not only manage your s successfully, but also to archive s, thus freeing up space in your Outlook memory. You may be reading this document is because you have received an from the System Administrator warning you that Your mailbox is over its size limit and you may be wondering what to do about it. It could be that your Outlook takes a while to start up, and occasionally slows down whilst in use. It may also be slow to search for s and to change the sort order. There are two main causes for this: Network Network speed is governed by many things, including the volume of general internet activity and how full the Drive (storage area) is. Size of your mailbox There are tasks, which are performed within automatically particularly at start-up which take longer if your mailbox is large. s with attachments take up more space than simple messages, and can be very large indeed. If the mailbox has over 5 GB worth of information, it can become very slow and prone to crash. You cannot control the network, but the size of your mailbox is entirely up to you

4 Strategy To make mailboxes smaller there are a number of options: Saving individual s and attachments in accordance with the Trust s Records Management Policies (See Policies below) Permanently deleting s Archiving s in bulk to the appropriate network storage area (See Policies below) Any combination of the above Choosing which strategy to use depends on a number of factors How often individual s need to be accessed The size of individual s The Trust s Records Management Policies (See Policies below) i.e. the need to keep certain s and/or attachments Policies Visit the following web pages for the relevant Hampshire Partnership Trust s Records Management Policies: Non-Clinical Records Management Policy Retention, Review and Disposal Schedule Best Practice Guidance for Managing Electronic Documents -

5 size It is important to understand that simply deleting or archiving large numbers of s may not necessarily make your Outlook size smaller. This is because individual s vary in size, and some s, especially those with attachments, can be very large indeed. One could be as large as 20 Mb in size, while other s can be as small as 1 Kb. Archiving or saving and deleting one 20 Mb will make enough space for 20,480 1KB s. Therefore, the first step to managing your mailbox size is to determine the size of the individual s within your folders. Check that your folders have a Size column header in it. If it does not, then follow steps 2 to 5 otherwise; jump to step 6 on the next page. Click your right mouse button over any of the column headings. 6. Close the Field Chooser box 3. Select Field Chooser from the menu 4. Scroll down until you can see the Size field 5. Left click and drag the Size field to the column headings - 4 -

6 To discover which s are taking up most space; 7. The triangle in the Received column; indicates that the s are currently sorted in order that they were received - with the newest s at the top. 8. Click on the Size column header to sort the s by size. 9. The s are now sorted by size, with the largest at the top. The Triangle is now in the Size Column. 10. If you wish to sort in ascending order; Click on the Size header again. The Triangle will also change direction. 1 When you have finished; remember to change the sort order back so that you can see the newest s at the top. Note: Do not forget to do this for ALL of your folders, including your Sent Items folder

7 Saving and Deleting Saving s If you wish you can save the actual to the appropriate network storage drive. Click on File and choose Save As then Save in the normal * way. See Policies on page 3 above * I.e. Save in the same way that you would Save a Word document. This will save the in.htm format. This format does not save any attachments within the . To save the message with its attachments change the file type to.msg format. Click on File and choose Save As (See Step 1 above) 3. Click on the black triangle next to the box with HTML in it 4. Select Outlook Message Format (*.msg) from the list 5. Complete the rest of the Save process in the normal way - 6 -

8 Deleting s Warning: Simply deleting large numbers of s, without careful consideration, can lead to other issues; for example due to unforeseen reasons, it may become necessary to produce a previously deleted . Once you have identified unnecessary s you can delete them; simply select the with the mouse and press the Delete key on the keyboard. Remember: Deleting an also deletes any attachments unless you have saved these separately. (See Saving Attachments without the on page 9 below) To select more than one for bulk deletion, you can do the following: To select (highlight) a series of consecutive s: Left click on the first Hold the Shift key down (On your keyboard above the Ctrl key) 3. While continuing to hold down the Shift key, left click on an further down the list 4. Release the Shift key Note: Do not click on any more s without holding down your Shift key, otherwise, you will loose your selection This will select all s in between the two s you selected. You may then carry out your action, such as deleting. To highlight a number of individual s: Hold the Ctrl key down (On your keyboard) While continuing to hold down the Ctrl key, left click on another 3. Both s will be selected 4. Keep holding down the Ctrl key and click on more s, until you have selected all the s you require 5. Release the Ctrl key. Note: Again; do not click on any more s without holding down your Ctrl key; otherwise, you will loose your selection Important Note: Deleting s using this method does NOT in fact delete them; it simply moves them to a special folder called Deleted Items. The Deleted Items folder is still part of your mailbox and therefore s in this folder will still count towards your grand total

9 Permanently deleting individual s from the Deleted Items folder To permanently delete individual s from the Deleted Items folder: Click on the Deleted Items folder on the left hand side of the screen. 4. Click on the Inbox folder when finished Select and delete the s as before. 3. Click on Yes Tip: Look out for duplicated s or attachments - you may have several items with the same large attachments, and you can safely remove the extras. Emptying the Deleted Items folder To permanently delete ALL s and ALL other deleted items, such as deleted appointments, from your deleted items folder: Go to Tools and then Empty Deleted Items Folder Click on Yes Note: It is good practice to empty the Deleted Items folder regularly, and keep the mail in it to a minimum. HHIS recommend keeping up to 2 months worth of deleted items at most in order to keep storage to a manageable minimum

10 Automatically emptying the Deleted Items folder Outlook s default setting is to keep everything in the Deleted Items folder until it is manually purged using one of the methods described on page 8 above. However, this can be changed so that Outlook will automatically empty the Deleted Items folder whenever the program is closed. Warning: It is not possible to retrieve items that have been emptied (permanently deleted) from the Deleted Items folder. Therefore, when using this method, one should exercise more care when deleting items; due to the increased risk of permanently loosing important items. Click on the Tools menu Select Options 3. Select the Other tab 4. Add or remove the tick from this box; depending on your preference - 9 -

11 Attachment Management Saving Attachments without the You can of course open an attachment and save it in the normal way. You can also choose File then Save Attachments from your in-box or from within the itself. This is particularly useful when you have multiple attachments; it allows you to choose to save all or only the ones you wish to save. Click on File and choose Save Attachments Navigate to your the appropriate* drive and Save in the normal way. * See Policies on page 3 above

12 Removing Attachments from s Once you have saved your attachment(s) you may of course delete the ; however sometimes you may wish to remove the attachment and keep the Open the with the attachment. Right click on the attachment and select Remove 3. Close the 4. If this alert box pops up, click on Yes

13 Archiving s What is Archiving? When you receive an , it is stored in your Mailbox, on the central computer along with all your Calendar appointments, Tasks and Contacts. Archiving is the process of moving some or all of these items, as you choose to categorise them, from your Mailbox to an appropriate folder. (See Policies on page 3 above) This removes them from your Outlook mailbox so making it smaller and quicker. Because these items are still stored on the network you can still open them in Outlook when you need them. Archiving As with all Windows applications, there are many ways to do this. However, we recommend this method: You may archive s in any order: Exactly as they are in your inbox By date order By subject First, open the Archive dialogue box: Click on File and choose Archive 1b. If Archive does not appear in the menu; click on the arrows at the bottom of the menu, then click on Archive Continued on next page

14 Continued from previous page Select Archive this folder and all subfolders 4. Choose the Archive items older than date. (We suggest 3 months before the current date) 3. Select the folder containing the s and sub folders that you wish to archive 5. The Archive file location may default to the C:\ drive. It is important that you change this! 6. Click on the Browse button and navigate to the appropriate* folder (If you need to create a new folder - click on the Create New Folder button.) * See Policies on page 3 above 8. When you are happy with your settings Click OK 7. Outlook will name this file archive.pst by default. It is very important you change this to make it more meaningful. e.g. Sent items Jan02- Dec02. (See Warning) Warning: If you do not rename your archive file in step 7, and each time you archive your s; you will create an archive file, which will increase in time with every archive you do, and again cause problems because of its size. Outlook will now archive the items in the selected Outlook folder/s that are older than your chosen date, and place them in the.pst file in the folder that you designated. This may take some time and you may see a notification in the status bar at the bottom of your screen while this is taking place

15 Viewing and Managing Archived Items Adding the archive folder In order to view and manage your archived items you will first need to Add your archive folder to the folders list on the left hand side of the Inbox. Select Data file Management from the File menu. You may need to expand the menu to see this. Click on Add 3. Select Office Outlook personal Folders File (.pst) Then click OK 4. Navigate to the.pst file you have created previously* and select it Then click on OK * See Archiving on page 11 above Continued on next page

16 Continued from previous page 5. Change the Name to match the file name i.e. Sent items Jan02-Dec02 6. Click OK 7. Click Close To close the remaining dialogue box 8. You will now see your Archive folder in the Folders area to the left of your Inbox Retrieving and Managing archived items Items in your archive folder/s can now be viewed and opened; by clicking on the relevant folder and opening the item in the normal way. Items from the archive folder now can be Un-archived simply by dragging them from the archive folder and dropping them into relevant folder

17 You may also use this method to fine-tune your archived folders by dragging individual or bulk items in either direction. To find out how to select items in bulk please see Deleting s on page 7 above. Do not attempt to drag any more than 200 s at a time. Closing Archived folders There is one more thing you can do to ensure your mailbox runs at optimum speed: close mail archives you open in Outlook. If you do not, every time Outlook starts it opens again all the archives previously open, which slows it down. So if you do not need to access archive files all of the time, it is better to close them to free up Outlook. Right click on the archive folder Click on Close Name of Folder If you subsequently need to reopen a particular archive, follow the steps outlined in the Adding the archive folder section on page 13 above. Auto-Archive This feature is currently disabled