Managing Your Outlook Mailbox 1. Introduction
Email quotas control the amount of email that can be stored in your Outlook mailbox on the FM Realty Email service. FM Realty users are issued an email quota limit of 200,000 KB (Kilobytes). Warning messages are initiated when the overall storage size reaches 180,000 KB allowing time for the user to use some of the following techniques to prevent the inability to send Email when the 200,000 KB email quota limit is reached.
KEY POINT: If you reach your email quota limit you will be notified and you must then take steps to reduce your mailbox size before you can send any more
messages.
2. The need for storage management
Simple text messages are usually only a few Kilobytes in size, however, the use of
images and message attachments which are part of the day-to-day life of most FM Realty users will rapidly increase the storage space that is used. You should be aware that Outlook by default keeps copies of all messages you send in a folder called Sent Items and copies of all messages you delete are kept in a folder called Deleted Items. It is therefore very easy to accumulate a large mailbox unless you fully delete items regularly.
3. What can you do?
There are several ways you can reduce the size of your mailbox, they include:
• Delete all of your unwanted email items.
• Empty your Sent Items folder and your Deleted Items folder.
• Saving messages and attachments to a Personal Storage (PST) file thus removing the email item(s) from your mailbox.
4. Checking your Email quota usage
4.1 Checking the size of folders in your mailbox
To check the size of folders in your mailbox on the FM Realty server proceed as follows:
• Log on to your machine and run Outlook 2003/2007.
• In the Navigation Pane (the column on the left side of the Outlook window that includes panes such as Mail and Calendar) Click the Mail button and right- click on the Mailbox – Last name, First name folder name. Select Properties from the shortcut menu displayed.
• Then click on the Folder Size button to display another window that shows the structure and size of your mailbox folders.
In the above example the Total Size of the mailbox is given as 32245 KB.
4.2 Showing the size of messages in folders
To show the size of messages within a folder select the folder concerned in the Folder List window, e.g. Inbox and select Arrange By from the View menu. Then select Current View... followed by Customize Current View.... In the window that open click on the Fields button. Another window opens with a list of fields on the left, scroll down this list and select the field Size.
Click on Add so that the Size field is added to the right hand column. Click on the Move Up button until "Size" appears under Importance in the list of fields. Now click on OK to close the window, and then click on OK again to close the original window.
When you next view a folder there will be an extra field in your folder window called Size. If you click on the Size field icon, the messages within the folder will be sorted by their size. Clicking the Size field again will change the ordering from ascending to descending order of size, and vice versa.
5. Deleting Email items 5.1 Deleting email messages
You will most likely want to delete individual messages within a folder, or all messages within a folder.
• To remove single messages, highlight the message(s) you want to remove, click on the Delete option on the Toolbar and confirm the delete.
• To remove all messages within a folder, select a folder, and choose Edit from the toolbar, select all, so that all messages are highlighted, then click on the Delete option on the Toolbar. Confirm the delete.
Key Point: When you delete any messages from your mailbox they are automatically stored in a folder called Deleted Items. Such messages will continue to count against your email quota until they are permanently deleted, see section below.
5.2 Deleting Email attachments
To delete an attachment from a mail message, while retaining the main message body, locate the message containing the attachment, and open it by double clicking on it in the folder contents box.
The message attachment is shown under the Subject line after Attachments. Click on this once, so that it is highlighted, and press the Delete key. Only the body of the message will remain thus reducing storage space used.
5.3 Deleting Email folders
To delete a folder select the Folder List option from the View menu and select and right-click on the folder you wish to delete.
Select the Delete "folder name" option and then confirm the deletion when prompted to do so.
6. Emptying the Deleted Items folder
By default Outlook also places a copy of any messages that you delete in the folder called Deleted Items. This folder may grow large quite quickly and should be emptied
regularly.
You can specify that the Deleted Items folder is emptied when you exit from Outlook. To do this select Options from the Tools menu and then click on the Other tab. In the General section of the window is displayed click in the Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting check box.
7. Emptying the Sent Items folder
By default Outlook will place a copy of messages that you send in a folder called Sent Items. This folder may grow large quite quickly and therefore needs to be monitored and emptied regularly. Manual deletion of items is the same as for other folders, see section 5.
Key Point: When you send Email messages a copy is automatically stored in a folder called Sent Items. Such messages will continue to count against your email quota until they are permanently deleted.
8. Archiving Email items
You can free up a lot of file space from your email quota by archiving your email items. Your messages are transferred to a Personal Storage Table (PST) specified by you and can be protected and backed up if stored on the networked J: Drive.
NOTE: Items stored in PST files are not accessible via Outlook Web Access (OWA). This is a limitation of OWA and cannot be changed.
• From the File menu select New >
• Select Outlook Data File…
• Select Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) and click OK
• In the Save in: pull down menu, select your FM Network Username on
‘fm#\user’ (J:) where fm# is your office server name. (In this example rsilvia on ‘fm1\users’ (J:) was used)
NOTE: It is particularly important to choose the J: Drive if you are doing this operation from a UAW. You don’t want to create a local PST on a UAW as it will not be backed up, nor can you see it if you are on another machine.
• Enter a File Name for the PST folder name. (In this example Archive Folders was used) Click OK.
• In the next window in the name section enter a name that will be seen when you are in Outlook. It is very effective if you put J: in front of the archive
Home Based Agents:
You do not have access to the J: Drive from home.
Instead, create the PST file in you’re My Documents folder so it is easy to find!
name, so it will be a reminder that this archive is on the networked J: Drive.
In this example I used J: Archive Folder as the name.
After you create the PST file, it appears in the All Mail Folders list. Note that since we put the J: in front of the name, it is easy to remember that this is the archive area, and that it is out on the J: drive where it will be backed up!
Files or folders can now simply be dragged and dropped to the newly created archive area. In the above example, I dragged a couple of folders (The John Sanders, and Extreme Home Makeover folders) into the PST that I would like to retain, but am no longer requiring daily access to. When you move messages to a PST, you can organize them however you like. That is, a PST lets you create unique local folders, and put things anywhere you choose.
Home Based Agents:
Since you have created the PST file in you’re My Documents folder on your C: Drive, it is important to note that unless you back up your machine, this files and the data you are storing there is susceptible to loss if you’re hard drive crashes.
To protect this data, either
“burn” a copy to CD or DVD, or if you have a USB flash drive, copy the file onto the drive, and when you get into work, copy the PST file to your J: Drive so it can be backed up for you!
USB Drive
Some House Keeping Advice
If you organize your mail messages into suitably named folders your mailbox becomes much easier to manage. For example, you might list a home for Tom Smith at 123 Oak Tree Lane. You might create a folder named Tom Smith, or 123 Oak Tree Lane and store all correspondence related to that particular listing. When the listing closes, you can then archive the folder and all associated correspondence thus freeing up space in you active Email area.
To create a new folder for storing messages select the Mailbox – Lastname, Firstname folder and then select New Folder…. In the dialog box that opens type in a name for your new folder (In this example: New Folder Name). The "Folder contains:" box should have the option Mail and Post Items and the "Select where to place the folder;
should have the Mailbox – Lastname, Firstname folder highlighted. Click on OK. Your new folder is now listed in your Folder List pane.
You can now move relevant mail messages into your new folder. This can be done by selecting a message from your Inbox and dragging it on to the folder in the Folder List pane.
