I have a lot of customers who have problems with email, and it turns out many of the problems are fixed and prevented with just a little bit of maintenance on the email account. It is amazing some of the weird problems, double emails, email not sending, not able to see mail, all have been caused by an overloaded email database.
Here are the two basic steps for the Microsoft Mail programs that are on most computers.
If you have webmail such as Hotmail or Gmail where you go on the web browser to get your email, these operations will be different for each email provider, and some will have these type of features, and some will not.
Step 1 - Email Cleanup
Save Attachments to Another Location - All Microsoft Email Programs
Saving attachments to your hard drive, then deleting the email can really clear up space quick in
your email program. To save attachments to another location follow these steps:
Saving Attachments Method 1
- In the message with an attachment, right mouse click on the attachment, choose 'Save As'.
- Select the location where the attachment should be saved. You can put the photos or documents in folders you have in My Documents or My Pictures.
The attachment is now saved and can be cleared from the message by selecting the attachment and pressing the 'Delete' key on the keyboard.
Select File menu, Close and click on Yes when prompted "Do you want to save changes?"
Saving Attachments Method 2
- Another method is to select a message in your mailbox, then click on File>Save Attachments. Click on the attachments you want to save, or All, then choose the location to save it to.
The email trash can or "Deleted Items" folder does not automatically empty by default. Which means when you delete an email, it stays in your deleted Items folder, still taking up space on the computer.
Also, this Deleted Items folder is not your Recycle Bin, and has nothing to do with it. If you delete email, it never goes into your Bin, it always goes to the Deleted Items folder inside your email program.
So to be clear, the Recycle Bin is only for documents, photos, programs that you delete. Emptying that, will not empty your Email Deleted Mail Folder.
Step 3 - Re-indexing and compacting your email
Once a lot of email has come and gone, and some deleted, the index which tells you what mail you have, can get gummed up and slow and just do weird stuff, even make it so you can't send email. So the second step is to Re-index your email or compact the folders which does this cleanup for you.
Step 1 above will work on just about any email program you have on your computer. For the other steps, Here are step-by-step directions for each program you might have:
Outlook Express
Empty Deleted Items Folder
Right Click on Deleted Items folder >Empty Deleted Items Folder
Are you sure you want to permanently delete the items > Click Yes
Compacting and cleanup
File>Folder>Compact All Folders
File>Folder>Compact All Folders
Windows Mail (Vista Machines)
Empty Deleted Items Folder
Right Click on Deleted Items folder >Empty Deleted Items Folder
Are you sure you want to permanently delete the items > Click Yes
Compacting and cleanup
Tools>Options>Advanced>Maintenance
You can have it empty messages from the Deleted Items folder on exit if you wish, just check of that box.You can change the "compact database on shutdown every xxx runs. You can make it do it more often.
To run the cleanup and compacting now, just click on the clean up now button, and that will do the job of compacting and re-indexing your email.
You do not need to mess with any of the other settings there.
Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 (exact same menu)
Empty Deleted Items Folder
Right Click on Deleted Items folder >Empty Deleted Items Folder
Are you sure you want to permanently delete the items > Click Yes
Compacting and cleanup
Tools>Mailbox Cleanup
You can view the Mailbox size and see if there are huge folders that you might want to empty or even remove if not needed. You can also search or "Find" items that are of a certain size or age so you can remove them if you like.You can also view and empty the Deleted Items from this button
Auto Archive in Outlook
Outlook has an Auto archive feature that I like. I keep all my important current email in the current folders. But with Auto archive on, it moves older mail to an Archive folder at the bottom of your folder list.
The mail is still there, but it is nicely tucked away in this little storage locker in case you need them later. A search can go into the Archive to find items easily, so it is just a nice way to stay more organized.
The other nice housekeeping thing auto archive does, is it moves the email from the main database, to an archive database. That way your main file with your email database file gets smaller, which makes it work faster and more efficiently, and that old stuff gets put inside the archive database file, which kind of spreads the wealth, or size in this case.
To change the frequency and time of auto archiving, you go to Tools>Options>Other and click on the Auto archive button. The important settings you can change are how often to run it, I like every 30 days. I also like it to prompt me before it does the archive, because if there is a lot of mail, it can slow things down.
The big one you want to change is the Delete Expired Items (email folders only). Uncheck that, this means that some things will be deleted from your sent items, drafts, inbox after a set amount of time. I would highly recommend un-checking this - so all boxes, in, out, drafts, sent, all go to the archive after the specified time.
The other thing you can change is the "clean out items older than XXX days, months, etc. That is the setting that tells Outlook when to archive your items, after they are XXX old.
Make sure "Permanently delete old items" is unchecked also.
Here is a link to a previous article I did on backing up your email
I hope this helps keep your mountain of email a little more tamed!
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