ESSENTIAL EMAIL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ...................................................................................................1 Best Practice Methods ...............................................................................................................................1 Your Mailbox................................................................................................................................................2 Creating Folders in your Inbox..................................................................................................................

2 Attachments.................................................................................................................................................3 Email and Attachment File Sizes..............................................................................................................4 Check the total size of your Mailbox ........................................................................................................5 Archiving.......................................................................................................................................................6 Auto Archiving Folders ...............................................................................................................................6 Deleted Items Folder ..................................................................................................................................7 Recover Deleted Items ..............................................................................................................................8 Rules.............................................................................................................................................................8 Create a Rule to move email from a person to the Overflow folder ....................................................8 Personal Folders.........................................................................................................................................9 Creating a Personal Folder File in Outlook .............................................................................................9 Compacting Personal Folders.................................................................................................................12 Size of personal folders ...........................................................................................................................13 Exiting from Outlook .................................................................................................................................13 Recommendation......................................................................................................................................13

Essential Email Management Practices

Email is a wonderful tool which can make communicating very easy. However, it generates an enormous number of emails and every email sent or received is stored on the MS Exchange server. This is why it is necessary for quotas to be applied to Mailboxes and for every email user to practice good filing methods to manage the volume of email stored. The flow of email through a Mailbox

Best Practice Methods

Spring clean your Mailbox at least once a month and delete any non-essential emails. A general rule is if you havent referred to the email for two months, delete or archive it. Create folders to help organise your email Save attachments to a network drive

Keep a check on the size of emails and of your Mailbox Archive to delete or refile emails Automatically Empty Deleted Items when you exit Outlook Use Rules to assist email management Set up Personal Folders Attend Outlook training if possible

These best practice methods are explained in detail in the following pages.

Your Mailbox
Your Mailbox is on the Exchange server and has a quota of 50mb, which cannot be changed. You should delete unwanted messages and archive required messages regularly. When you get warnings about the size of your Mailbox, do not ignore them. You need to manage your Mailbox or eventually you will not be able to send or receive e-mail.

Creating Folders in your Inbox

Folders are used to organise messages by topic in the same way that you would use files in a filing cabinet. Messages normally arrive in your Inbox. Before or after you read them you can file them in folders according to topic, sender, priority or other criteria that may suit your work processes. To create a folder, turn on Folder List - View Folder List from the menu Right-click on the Inbox folder Select New Folder from the menu Type in a folder name, in this case we are calling it Overflow

Click OK

To view folders in Folder List click on the + beside the Inbox

To move messages to another folder, highlight the message and drag it to the folder or: Right click the message Select Move to Folder Highlight the folder Click Ok

Attachments
Attachments use the majority of space in most Mailboxes. Emails without attachments are usually small. The best way to deal with attachments, to save space in your Mailbox, is to save them to your O:\ drive (or another network drive) and then remove them from the message. To save attachments to your O:\ drive: Double-click on the message to open it. Choose File Save Attachments from the menu

Save Attachment dialog box opens Select a folder on your O:\ drive (or other network drive) where you want to store the attachment Click OK

To remove the attachment from a message: Double-click on the message to open it.

Click once on the attachment to select Press Delete on the keyboard or click the Close the message A prompt appears confirming that you want to save changes Click Yes Delete button on the message toolbar

Email and Attachment File Sizes

As a general rule, any message with an attachment or message over 1000 bytes (or B) in size should be deleted or archived immediately you have read or actioned it. You can add a Size field to your Inbox to display the size of every email you receive. For example, this section of an Inbox (below) shows the Attachment and Size columns. The emails that should be archived are the two with an attachment 19 kb and 159 kb respectively. It would also help to archive the 1010 bytes message as well.

To add the Size Column to your Inbox: Right-click on the Column Heading on the right-hand side of the Outlook window Shortcut menu opens Select Customise Current View from the menu

Click on the Fields button

Click on Size, then click on the add button. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to arrange the order of the fields. Click OK when complete

This will show you the size of the email and attachment

Check the total size of your Mailbox

It is likely that your Inbox, Deleted Items and Sent Items folders will contain the most messages. To check the size of your Mailbox: Right-click on Outlook Today Mailbox - [username]

Choose Properties for Mailbox - [username] from the menu At the bottom left-corner, click on Folder Size button.

Folder Size dialog box opens showing each folder in your Mailbox and its size

Archiving
Archiving is the deleting of old emails or moving them from your Mailbox to a file on your O:\ drive. It can be done manually or automatically. To make the process automatic, set the Auto Archiving properties for each folder and let Outlook handle the process for you. If you set Auto Archiving on your Inbox it does not flow through to folders. Each folder has to be set up separately.

Auto Archiving Folders

As well as archiving your Inbox, you should archive your Sent Items folder as it keeps a copy of every email you send. If you use the Calendar and Tasks, then they should also be archived. When you archive, your existing folder structure is maintained in your new archive file. To set Auto Archiving properties on folders: Right-click on the folder Select Properties from the shortcut menu displayed Property dialog box is displayed Select the Auto Archive tab and set the options available here, for example emails older than 3 months will be deleted.

Deleted Items Folder

The Deleted Items folder stores everything deleted from other folders within Outlook. As a result it can become very large. However, you can set folder properties to automatically empty the Deleted Items folder when you exit Outlook. Tip - If you find yourself referring to the Deleted Items folder then you should keep those emails in another folder, until you no longer need them. The Deleted Items folder should only be used for items that you definitely no longer require. To automatically Empty the Deleted Items folder: Choose Tools Options from the menu Options dialog box opens Click on Other tab at top of dialog box Click in the checkbox Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting

Click OK to close the Options dialog box

Recover Deleted Items

Items deleted within the last ten days may be recovered. The item must have been deleted (ie. moved to the Deleted Items folder) and then permanently deleted (by emptying Deleted Items) to be considered recoverable using the following method. To recover a Permanently Deleted Item: Click on the Deleted Items folder (This step is critical, as the folder must be selected for the following steps to work.) Select Tools from the menu Select Recover Deleted Items The Recover Deleted Items window is displayed Scroll through the list and highlight the email/s you need to recover. (Hold down the Control key and click on each email to select non-adjacent emails) Click on the Recover Selected Items Toolbar button to put the message into your Deleted Items

Rules
The Rules Wizard can automatically organise your messages, both received and sent, into folders for either filing or reading purposes. Outlook Rules can automate processes such as: Move messages to a particular folder based on who sent them. Flag messages from a particular person such as your manager Assign categories to your sent messages based on their contents.

For example, if you regularly receive email from a number of sources, but do not wish to read the messages immediately, you can set up a folder/rule system to file these messages for you. Create a new folder in your Inbox Create a rule to move the message from your Inbox to this folder

Create a Rule to move email from a person to the Overflow folder

Next time you get a message from the person you want to setup a rule for, highlight the message, and then click on the Organize button on the Toolbar. Select the Using Folders option, Create a rule to move new messages From into Overflow (new folder) Click Create button

New messages from the specific source address will now go directly to the Overflow folder rather than you Inbox.

Personal Folders
If you absolutely cannot maintain your Mailbox within the quota through the management methods discussed above, you can create a Personal Folder, in O:\Outlook. Personal Folders have a .pst extension. They are not recommended unless absolutely necessary as they can become corrupt. The same email management techniques need to be applied to Personal Folders as to Mailboxes in order to minimise their size.

Creating a Personal Folder File in Outlook

The purpose of a personal folder file is to allow you to store Outlook mail items in a directory preferably on a network drive, or your hard drive. . If you do create a personal folder on your hard drive it will not be backed up and if anything happens to the file we will not be able to recover it for you. On the Outlook menu click Tools/Services.

In the new window select the Add , Personal Folders, and click OK.

In the next window type the location of the .pst file to be created. Type O:\Outlook\username ie if your Qpost username is brownj, type O:\Outlook\brownj and click Open.

In the next dialogue window, click OK.

Tip: Do not give the Personal Folders a password as if you forget your password we cannot recover it for you. Now you are returned to the Services window, click OK.

Now, the new folder just created shows up in your folder list. This one was named My personal mail, so that is the name of the folder. You may now drag and drop any item from your mailbox

Compacting Personal Folders

After you have deleted unwanted emails from your personal folders they won't actually reduce in size until you compact them. Choose Tools Services from the menu

Choose the Personal Folder service from the list Click on the Properties button Click on the Compact Now button

Depending on how big your Personal Folder file is this process could take 15 minutes or more to complete.

Size of personal folders

To check the size of your Personal Folders: If you do not have your folders list open, choose View Folders List from the menu Right-click on Personal Folders in the Folders list Shortcut menu opens Choose Properties of your Personal Folders from the shortcut menu

Personal Folders properties dialog box opens At the bottom left-corner, click on the Folder Size button.

Folder size dialog box opens displaying each folder in your Personal Folders area and its size

Exiting from Outlook

How you exit from Outlook can cause some problems for you, particularly if you are using Rover. Most people just click the X in the top right hand corner of the Outlook window - this is not the recommended way to close outlook. We recommend that you, choose File Exit & Log Off from the menu

Recommendation
We understand that everyone is busy but we strongly recommend you consider attending Outlook training as it will help you to save time by using the many features Outlook has. If you need assistance with any of the features of Outlook please contact the Helpdesk on 132 131.