* Also note that there is a 10MB per email limit on all CC email accounts *

Sooner or later, especially with the increased prominence of attachments, you will hit that limit – unless you know how to manage your email efficiently, in which case you can avoid the problem before it ever happens, and know what to do even if it does.

The first step in managing your email is awareness – knowing how large emails are, being able to check the size of your entire mailbox, and being aware of Outlook’s quirks when it comes to automatically saving messages.

* Folder Size *

It’s often helpful to add the “size” field to the current view so you can see exactly how big each email in your inbox is. To do this:

– Go to the “View” menu
— Select “Current View”
— Go down to “Customize Current View”
— Click Fields

You should see this screen:

Select “Size” on the left-hand column and then click “Add ->” to move it over to the right-hand column (which displays all the fields currently shown in the view of that particular folder).

*Note* you will need to do this for each separate folder on which you would like to view the size (I recommend “Inbox,” “Drafts,” and “Sent Items.”

It should automatically place the new size column on the far right-hand side of the window, as shown. Now, in order to understand this information, it’s important to understand the number convention:

The basic unit of memory is a Byte (B). There are 1,000 Bytes in a Kilobyte (KB), and 1,000 Kilobytes in a Megabyte (MB). Remember earlier I had mentioned that the total size limit for your mailbox is 50 Megabytes (which would be 50,000 KB, or 50,000,000 B).

Thus, looking at the list above, you can see that the very first item there is 1 MB, which means it is one-thousand times the size of the third item (1 KB). Just keep this in mind when you do your email housecleaning: it does not matter how many emails you delete, only how big they are.

So now we’ve looked at how to look at the size of individual emails, let’s explore how to look at the size of the entire mailbox. To do this:

– Right Click at the top of the folder list where it says “Outlook Today – [Mailbox - 'your name']“
— Select “Properties for Mailbox – ‘your name’”

— Click on the button that says “Folder Size” in the bottom left corner. You should see a window that looks like this:

In the example, you’ll notice that “Total Size” reads 14859K. This means that my entire mailbox is taking up approximately 15 MB (35 left to go, not bad). Also, below is a list of each folder and its respective size – this can be a great way to identify where your largest stash of emails is so that you can go directly there and see what can be deleted.  

* Outlook’s Secret Stashes *

Another important aspect of email management to keep in mind is that Outlook has several of what I call Secret Stashes, where it stores automatically saved copies of messages that will count against your limit. However, in this next section, I’ll point out each and every one of them to you.

The Drafts folder saves any emails you’ve written but not yet sent. It’s very useful for things like saving an email when it’s time to go home and then coming in the next morning to finish it. However, many people end up writing an email with, say, a 2MB attachment. Then they change their minds before sending it and close out, thinking it gone. If they’ve clicked “save” or if the email has been up for a certain amount of time (5-10 minutes) Outlook will automatically stick it in the Drafts folder, which then counts against your limit.

Outlook also likes to save a copy of every email you send in the “Sent Items” folder. Again, it can be very useful to have copies of messages you’ve sent for reference. just keep in mind that this folder, more than any other, can build up FAST – so keep your eye on it.

The final secret stash in Outlook is the Deleted Items Folder. Every time you delete an email, a contact, an appointment, or whatever, it does not actually get deleted! Instead, Outlook puts it in the Deleted Items folder, which will still count against your limit.

The best way to deal with the Deleted items folder is to set it to empty itself automatically every time you close out of Outlook. To do so:

– Go to the “Tools” Menu
— Select “Options”
— Select the “Other” tab
— Check the box that says “Empty the Deleted Items Folder upon exiting”

You can also manually empty deleted items by going to “Tools” and selecting “Empty Deleted Items Folder.” Or clicking on the deleted items folder and deleting the items manually.

The point is, however you do it, make sure you empty that folder and don’t let all your deleted items stack up.

Keeping on top of these secret stashes is a big part of managing your email effectively and making sure you don’t hit that 50 MB limit.

* Creating a folder structure *

Just as it’s important to plan out and then create an organized filing system for regular files, it’s important to do the same thing with your emails. (You also do it in almost the exact same way).

To create a new folder, simply right-click anywhere in the folder list and select “New Folder” as shown:

This will bring up the new folder window:

Type in an appropriate name for your new folder, choose the type of item it contains (mail items means it holds emails, appointment items means it’ll create a calendar, etc.) and then select where you’d like the folder to sit (what will be its “parent” folder, I recommend putting all your first level folders in “Inbox”) and click OK. Now you’ll see your new folder, and can add items into it simply by dragging them over.

Creating a folder structure such as this won’t make a difference against your size limit, but it will make an enormous difference when you go to try and find an email.

* Another useful tool in this regard is the ability to sort the emails by any of the fields you’d like. You can use this to delete items older than a certain date, or from a certain person (or listserv), etc. *

* Personal Folders *

Sometimes, no matter how well you manage the secret stashes and delete your large emails, you end up going over the size limit anyway and all with emails you really need to keep! It’s best if you can avoid this, but sometimes you just can’t.

If that’s the case, then the best solution for you is to create Personal Folders.

Essentially, Personal Folders act the exact same way as other folders, the only difference is where the actual data is stored. All the folders nested within the Outlook Today [Mailbox - Username] folder are stored on the server (as we’ve discussed). This is nice because they are accessible from anywhere. Personal folders, however, are not stored on the server. You can store them on your hard drive, your H: drive, a zip drive. anywhere you could store a normal file. This means that anything you store in a Personal Folder doesn’t count against your size limit of 50MB. Wonderful news, but like most wonderful news it comes with a bad side as well: since it’s no longer on the server, you can only access those personal folders from the computer you store them on (or the zip disk, CD, etc.)

So use them sparingly.

To set up Personal Folders:

– Go to the “Tools” menu
— Select “Services”:

– Click “Add’

– Select “Personal Folders” from the list:

– Click “OK”

** Select the folder in which you’d like to save the Personal Folder File. This step is very important.

– Give the file a name (example: PF-Old Email)
— Click “Open”

Type in the name again (I’d recommend making it the same name as the file, in order to avoid confusion. This is the name that will actually show up in Outlook). You can set up encryption if you’d like, but I’d highly recommend leaving it off. Similarly, you can password protect your Personal Folder but, again, I’d advise against it because if you forget your password, there’s no other way to access the file.

Then click OK, and you should see the personal folder pop up in your folder list (either at the very top or very bottom, depending on what you named it). You can make yourself an organization structure by creating new folders inside the personal folder just like we did with the inbox. Just remember that everything under the personal folder is stored wherever you specified and NOT on the server like everything else.

The size of the personal folder is only limited by the medium to which you store it (1.4 MB if it’s a floppy disk, up to about 75 ,000 MB on a large hard drive)

* Shift / Control Clicking *

As you organize the flow of email coming to your inbox, you’ll want to know how to select multiple items at once, whether it be for deletion or moving into a personal folder, or whatever. There are two main methods of doing this.

Shift Click : If you click the first item you want to select, then hold down the shift key and click the last item, Outlook will also select everything in between:

Control Click : If you click one item, hold down the control key and click another, it will add the items to your selection one at a time (this is useful when you want to select a lot of items but they aren’t necessarily in a row):

You can also combine the two – you just can shift-click multiple times. You can, however, shift-click yourself a list of ten, and then use control-click to add to your selection.

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