Are your email inboxes bursting with email? If the answer is yes then not only is your email repository's bulk slowing down your email client, but you need to get organized. The first step to organization is cleaning up, followed by intelligent archival of your messages. In this article I'll explain my system for keeping my Microsoft Outlook email repository tidy and how to archive old email for safekeeping. Even if you don't use Outlook, you can generally apply these same principles to whatever email client you do use. Furthermore, with Outlook you can archive any data type except Contacts.

The key is Outlook's AutoArchive feature. This feature allows you to control its behavior on two levels. First, you can turn AutoArchive on or off on an Outlook-wide basis, select an archiving interval (in days), and choose where the archived data should go. Second, on a folder-by-folder basis you can turn AutoArchive on or off (for that specific folder), specify how old an item must be to qualify for archival, and where to send it. The archival destination you specify for a folder can be different from the destination specified in the dialog controlling Outlook-wide settings, should you need to do this, but I don't advise it. Also, for any folder you can choose to permanently delete old items instead of archiving them.

 

1. To globally configure Outlook's AutoArchive feature, select Tools, choose Options, click the other tab, click the AutoArchive button, and implement the settings you prefer. I like the cleanup to occur weekly, and to be told it's about to run before it does. I also like to collect archival data into one archive (Archive.pst), then as the quarters roll by I manually move data from Archive.pst into quarter-specific archives. I recommend these global settings:

• ON: AutoArchive every 7 days
• ON: Prompt before AutoArchive
• OFF: Delete expired items when AutoArchiving (email folders only)
• Default archive file -- Archive.pst (path will vary)

2. To set an individual folder's AutoArchive properties, right- click on the folder, choose Properties, click the AutoArchive tab, and implement the settings you prefer. Remember that you'll have to repeat this process for each individual folder you want to archive. I recommend:

• ON: Clean out items older than 1 Month
• ON: Move old items to -- Archive.pst (same file as above)

3. Outlook may have already set some values for your folders, even some you might not want to be archived. So when working your way through step #2, do so for ALL your folders just in case one of them has archiving on (or off) and you want it set the other way round. I've also seen cases where Outlook pointed a specific folder's archives to a PST file other than the one set globally. Once you've walked through all your folders this way, you won't have to do so again.

4. Every quarter, do a bulk move of the *prior* quarter's email records from Archive.pst to a quarter-specific archival file. Use the following steps.

5. Create a quarter-specific file named consistently like this:

"Archive yyyy Quarter n.pst"

For example, "Archive 1999 Quarter 4.pst". This way your archive files sort nicely when you view them in File Open dialogs or in Windows Explorer. To create a new PST file, select File, choose "Personal Folders File (.pst)", select a folder, type in the name, and click the Create button. Use a consistent description, which may as well be the same as the filename, "Archive 1999 Quarter 4". Enter this text in the "Name" field. I leave the remaining options in the "Create Microsoft Personal Folders" dialog set to their default values and click OK. The new PST is now listed in your Outlook Bar (or Folder List), and contains just one empty folder: Deleted Items.

6. When moving data, I strongly recommend you ALWAYS DO A COPY FIRST. Then if the copy is successful you can safely delete the source material. This is because moving--or even copying--large amounts of data will suck your system resources dry very quickly. Once that happens you'll get the dreaded "Low Resources" warning message, and any operation that occurs thereafter is highly suspect.

As an example, say you want to move all of the email you sent during October-December 1999, and you're moving it from Archive.pst into "Archive 1999 Quarter 4.pst". Create a standard Sent Items folder in "Archive 1999 Quarter 4.pst". Go back to Archive.pst and select your Sent Items folder. Manually select the first October 1999 message in the message list, then Shift+Click on the last message in December 1999; this selects all messages in between. Right-click anywhere on the selected list of messages, drag the list and drop it on the "Archive 1999 Quarter 4.pst" file's Sent Items folder, then choose Copy from the popup menu. If you want to double-check yourself, look in the archive's Sent Items folder to verify the contents. (If you do this you'll have to re-select Archive.pst's October-December 1999 sent messages before taking the next step.) Now CAREFULLY delete your Archive.pst's October-December 1999 Sent Items email.

7. More on copying... I only copy in blocks of 200-300 records at a time, anything else risks triggering the "Low Resources" warning message.

8. Once a given quarter's PST has been created and there's no new data coming in, you may want to strip out any attachments (or not, at your discretion), and verify there are no records in the Deleted Items folder. To open an archival PST, select File, choose Open, choose "Personal Folders File (.pst)", select the desired file, and click OK. By the way, you don't need to have these archival PST files explicitly open unless you're actively moving data into them. To close an open PST, right-click on it in Outlook's folder list and choose Close. (The popup menu's command will actually be labeled "Close <filename>" as in "Close Archive 1999 Quarter 4".)

9. Once you've gotten this far, it's time to compact the PST. To do so, first close any other running applications, which includes pausing Task Scheduler. Then right-click the PST in Outlook's folder list, click the advanced button, and then click the "Compact Now" button. Compacting may take some seconds or even minutes, depending on the size of the archival PST, so DO NOT INTERRUPT IT. When done, click OK to clear all the dialogs then close the PST. Now you can un-pause Task Scheduler.

10. Routinely make sure your Archive.pst doesn't get bloated. My rule of thumb is to compact it but ONLY if it's less than 80 MB. Anything larger and I don't trust the compact operation; instead it's time for manual pruning.