Link: http://www.centrend.com

I have encountered this a few times in visits to my customers. Users will put an email into the trash, but say, “Well, I‘ll just leave it in there until I am sure I don’t need it,” or, “I’m going to go through all of these and clean them out, because there are some in there I might want to keep!” Think of the rationale here and apply it to your real trash at work or at home. You wouldn’t put anything in the garbage and say, “Boy, I just might need that later; I’ll just put in the trash here!” People do this all the time with their email, thinking that they will get back to it, but in a world of today’s busy lifestyles this is probably not a reality. There are many ways of curing you from this bad habit. We are going to specifically talk about Microsoft Outlook here, but this could apply to webmail as well.

Creating folders under the Inbox – This is probably the easiest method. You need to keep email received from Fred? Create a folder called ‘Fred’ and put it in there. This will keep you organized and on task, and even if think you may want to get rid of it, it’s in there and you can delete it later.

Archive mail – Done with your email from 2006, but you may want to refer back to it? You can archive this email, and this will have a couple of great benefits. Once again you can refer to that folder very quickly, but you can also take some of the file strain off your Outlook by creating an archive. You can even create the archive on you server ready for backup (if applicable).

Auto Archive – Outlook has a great feature to Auto Archive your email for you. It will set up to clean out your inbox all by itself, sending the email to an archive. I have mine set to clean out every 14 days. This will take the cleanup out of your hands, you can even set it to delete emails that are X months old, but dealing with the core that this is geared to, you would probably rather have root canal that delete old emails!

Create an “almost trash” folder - This is really the same as creating a folder, but it is specific to this issue. It’s an “I’m not sure I will need it - and I don’t think I do - but let’s put it here for now” folder. This is not ideal, but will keep you in better habits. You could archive this folder as well, taking the weight off of the bulging email file ready to burst!

Empty deleted items folder upon exiting Outlook – I know scary…right? After we have done all the things we can to organize and streamline our email, we want to get rid of that trash every time you exit Outlook. Some users also think that when they put items in the Deleted Items or once they hit delete that is it gone…not true. The Deleted Items is merely just a folder waiting for you to empty it. If we turn the switch on for emptying Deleted Items, it will prompt you every time you exit Outlook!

With older Outlook clients users are restricted to 2 gigs worth of space. It sounds like a lot, but if you are one of the many email hoarders of the world, and are not using some of the practices above, this will add up quicker than you think, especially with email with loads of attachments. Once its goes past this 2 gig mark, you are putting yourself in a position to lose some or all of your email.

Still not sure how to do all this? If you have any questions, at Centrend we are always willing to help…just let us know.

- Hank
 
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Hank Lockwood
Technical Consultant
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550