Managing Outlook

Every student, staff and faculty member has a set mailbox size.  If your account exceeds this size, you will no longer be able to send or receive e-mails.  If you receive a message warning that your mailbox is over its size limit, you must take action to reduce the size of your account.

Please note that the instructions on this page are for use with Microsoft Outlook.  If you use another program to access your e-mail, feel free to call the Help Desk at x2100 (faculty and staff) or x2007 (students), or swing by and you can log in on one of our computers.

Checking Folder Size

The first step is to see what folders are using up the most space.  To check the size of each folder, log into your e-mail account using Microsoft Outlook, then right click on the "Personal Folders" heading located on the far left, then click "Properties for Personal Folders".

Once you have accessed the Folder Properties menu click "Folder Size". This option will show you how much space each folder is occupying, this is shown below.

Now that you know which specific folder is taking up space you can begin to delete or archive the emails accordingly. Click the "close" button once you know which folders needs to be cleaned. Then press "ok" on the Folder Properties menu. You are now ready to begin deleting or archiving your emails.

Deleting Emails

The largest folder is likely your inbox, and going through it and getting rid of any old e-mails or e-mails with large attachments will help reduce your box size.  Additional e-mails that are taking up unnecessary space may be hiding in the, Sent Items, Drafts, and Deleted Items folders. By simply clicking on one of these folders its contents will appear on the right. You are now free to scroll through each them and begin to delete all unnecessary emails. To delete an simply highlight it and press the delete button, located on the right side of the keyboard.  Make sure to clear out your Deleted Items folder (right-click on it and select "Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder") when you are finished, as e-mails in this folder still take up space.

Archiving Emails

Archiving emails allows you to save emails to your computer so they don't take up space on the server. It's important to note that these emails are only accessible from the machine that you archive them on.

Creating Personal Folders

To create a personal folder, open the Tools menu at the top of the Outlook window and select E-mail Accounts. The screen below will appear.

The view or change existing e-mail accounts option will be automatically selected. Click "Next" and the following screen will appear.

At the bottom of the window, Personal Folders should appear, as show above. Click the adjacent "New Outlook Data File" button and the following screen should appear.

Make sure "Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)" is selected, and click OK. Once you have done that the following screen will appear.

The personal folder should be saved as your username. Type your username (or any name you wish to use) in the File name space and click OK. The following screen will appear.

The name should be labeled "Personal Folders".  You may select the other options as you wish.  Compression and encryption give you some security in the unlikely event of a stolen file.  You may also give the file an additional password if you wish.  Press OK, and the E-mail Accounts screen will appear again.  Click Finish. You have now created a personal folder.

Once you have created a Personal Folder, it will appear in the navigation pane at Outlook's left, and you can create subfolders within it to keep your Personal Folder organized. To create a subfolder, right click on the personal folder and click new folder. You  may name your folder what ever you like and you can organize your emails accordingly.  To move e-mails to the personal folders, simply click and drag them from your Inbox to the folder.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to call us at x2100 (faculty and staff) or x2007 (students).