Managing your mailbox size
Keeping your mailbox size in check
Keeping your mailbox size under control has many good benefits. Not only will you be keeping your Exchange Administrators happy, you'll be treated to faster Outlook performance and less clutter in your mailbox.
Outlook has a built-in tool to help us keep things under control. To access this tool, click on "Tools" then "Mailbox Cleanup...". A window will pop up that looks like this:
This tool provides several options that will help us keep things trim and fit in our mailbox.
The first place to start is to check the mailbox size. Do this by clicking on the "View Mailbox Size..." button. A new window will appear. Click on the "Server Data" tab. It will look something like this:
This window shows us the total size of our mailbox on the server. It also breaks it down into our sub-folders so we can see which sub-folders are using the most space. Click Close when you are done reviewing your mailbox size.
The most powerful tool on the Mailbox Cleanup window is the "Find..." tool. With this tool we can find large or old message. Fill in 2000 for the "Find items larger than" box and click "Find...". This will find any messages and attachments in your mailbox that is larger than 2 Megabytes. When you click "Find..." it will look something like this:
We now have a list of large messages that we can work with. Most of the items that will show up will be messages with large attachments.
Double click on these messages to open them up. If you haven't already saved the attachment on your home file space, save it now (if it needs to be saved). To remove the attachment from the message, right-click on the attachment and select "Remove". Close the message and say "Yes" when it asks you if you would like to save the changes. You will notice that this message is no longer in our list of large messages.
Continue this for all the large attachments that no longer need to be in your mailbox. Close the Advanced Find window when you are done.
The last thing we'll look at on the Mailbox Cleanup window is the "Emtpy the deleted items..." tool. This one is simple. Click the "Empty" button, click "Yes" when it asks you for confirmation and you are done!
Using these tools regularly will help you keep your mailbox size under control.
