How to archive e-mails with Outlook

To cleanup the Outlook mailbox and reduce its size - apart from deleting e-mails no longer needed – you can also put older emails into an archive.
(Important hint when deleting e-mails: don't forget to clear the folder deleted items)

To get the info about the size of your mailbox and its folders please use Tools, Mailbox Cleanup and click the button near Size of your mailbox.
The label total size (including subfolders) displays the overall size of the mailbox (1024 KB is equal to 1 MB).

 The file size of an archive file is limited on maximally 2GB. If you liked to archive more, it make sense to divide the archive files (e.g. after year or topics).

To archive e-mails with Outlook the following steps are needed:

• Select  File, Archive from the main menu.
  
• In the archive window you then specify the conditions for archiving:
  
  
   
  
  - Choose the option: Archive this folder and all subfolders

- Select either the entire mailbox or just individual files
   (it is recommended to select the entire mailbox)

- Enter an appropriate date in the field: Archive items older than:
  Please note: The value given in this field does not correspond to
  the date when the mail has been sent to you, but to the last action
  taken with the messages, e.g. copy, move, received, forward etc.
  To give an example: An e-mail sent to you in 2002 will not be archived,
  when you did forward it once again in 2004 or you have moved it into
  another folder, even if you give a date before 01.01.2004 for archiving
  the e-mails.

- Activate the option: Include items with
   "Do not AutoArchive" checked.

- Important is where to safe the archive file ! 
  The best way is to create a new folder on drive Q:\ for the archive file,
  e.g. exchange (GSI standard), if this doesn't already exist.
  Then you can select the folder with the Browse button. The archive file
  shall be named clearly, e.g. Archiv_2003.pst. Only if the archive file is
  located on drive Q:\ it will be included in the automatic backup.
  Things are different for notebooks, as archive files can not be
  synchronized. Here you need to copy the *.pst files to the local hard
  drive and include it in the Outlook to get offline access to the archived
  messages.

- When all settings are done click the OK Button and Outlook starts to
  archive. You can check this by looking for the  symbol at
  the Outlook Toolbar.

• This just created *.pst file is automatically included as archive folder in
  the Outlook folder list.
  If this is not the case you can include the file manually:

- Select  File, Data File Management from the main menu.

- Choose Add in the window 'Outlook Data Files'.

- Press OK for confirmation in the follow-up window.

- Enter the location of the archive file.

- In the window 'Personal Folder' you can give a unique name for the
  archive (especially when you have several different archive files).

 

- Select OK for confirmation and close the last window.