Chapter 12: Archiving and Backup

Billions of emails are sent every day! The average worker receives over 100 emails per day. With Outlook currently being one of the top communication tools used in business, these numbers will continue to rise.

The question we usually face is, when do you delete an email and when do you save it? My friend recently told me she had over 16,000 unread emails in her inbox, and her inbox is still growing. How many times do you glance at an email and not read it completely because you know the content, but you just don’t feel good about deleting it? You never know when you may need that email, which just escalates the problem of never having control of your inbox.

As we go through this chapter, you will be guided to take control of your inbox and learn about the following topics:

• Cleaning up email clutter
• Archiving
• Saving emails outside of Outlook
• Backup in Outlook
• Exporting and importing
• Restoring .pst files

I’m not proposing that you should start deleting all your old emails, but taking control of your inbox means learning how to clean, archive, and back up your email to stay in control and still have confidence that you will be able to find an email when you need to. By successfully using the tools described in this chapter, you will also have conquered a very important step in Chapter 16, Managing Your Day System, in the Manage your day system section.

Cleaning up email clutter

It can get very confusing when considering how to effectively archive and back up your files in Outlook. You may have the following questions:

• Are my files backed up to the cloud?
• What happens to my emails when I archive them?
• If I archive my emails, will I still see my emails?
• If I archive, will I still need folders?
• Should I back up or archive?

Before you start to consider using the Archive and Backup tools, I would suggest you look at your inbox to determine how much space you have free in your account. Click on any account in the navigation pane, and then click File | Info. You will be able to view the size of the mailbox in this window.

Figure 12.1 – Mailbox size

If the Mailbox Settings section does not show this information, it is because you are looking at an account that is not an Exchange account, and that information is not available to you within Outlook:

1. To view the size of the Exchange account, click Tools | Mailbox Clean Up… | View Mailbox Size….

Figure 12.2 – Mailbox cleanup

2. In the Folder Size dialog box, you can view how large your account or folders within the account are.

Figure 12.3 – Folder Size

The size of the folders will be shown in KB (kilobytes). You may want to convert this number to GB (gigabytes), which is a more recognizable format for most people. If you are low on storage space, this number will give you an idea of how much space you will need to free up to allow your mailbox to not exceed your limits.

3. The following table illustrates how to convert KB to GB:

Table 12.1 – Converting KB to GB

If your email starts to slow down and get sluggish when sending and receiving emails or working with your calendars, then you will want to look and see how much remaining storage you have for your account. I have generally found if you are using more than 2 GB of storage in your accounts, Outlook will slow down.

4. To clean up your folders, click on File | Info | Tools | Mailbox Cleanup…. This is the same process as shown previously for looking at the size of an IMAP or Pop account, which you can view when you click on the View Mailbox Size… button.

Figure 12.4 – Mailbox Cleanup items

Other options you will be able to use to help with mailbox cleanup are as follows:

• Find items older than and Find items larger than: Toggle between the two options and type in either the days or size of the files you want to locate. The previous example shows the amount of 1240 KB, which will find all items over 1 GB.
• The AutoArchive button: Clicking on this button will automatically send your files to the Archive folder, which will be discussed later in the Archive section of this chapter.
• Empty and View Deleted Items Size…: Clicking Empty will permanently delete any items in the Deleted items folder. You may want to view these items in the navigation pane before clicking on this button. Once the button is clicked on, everything in the Deleted Items folder will be permanently deleted and a warning box will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to do this action. Click Yes to continue to delete these items, and click No to cancel.
• Delete all alternate versions of items in your mailbox is a way of handling conflicts that occur when multiple edits take place on items. Outlook will make the best choices for you in determining which files you want to keep when conflicts are present. Clicking Delete will allow Outlook to make those choices. Clicking View Conflicts Size… will allow you to view the folder size before deciding whether you want to use the Delete button.

Using Mailbox Cleanup is a faster way to clean up your folders, and I find it very helpful in quickly getting my inbox under control. If you don’t want to delete the email items completely, then I recommend using the archiving features in Outlook because you will still be storing those emails in your system, rather than deleting the items permanently.

Archiving

So, why Archive? Back in the day, when email was first invented, it was very expensive to keep a backup of all your data, let alone all your emails. That is why Archiving was created. Archiving keeps our mailboxes small and moves out old emails to a separate data file, referred to as a .pst file. Storage sizes generally provided now, in the cloud, have lots of available space, and Microsoft OneDrive accounts are so large that it’s no longer a big concern. OneDrive account sizes are as follows:

• Outlook.com – 15 GB cloud storage (free account)
• M365 Family – 6 TB (1 TB per person) cloud storage
• M365 Personal – 1 TB cloud storage
• M365 Enterprise - 1 TB cloud storage
• OneDrive for Business (Plan 2) – unlimited cloud storage

With the various M365 plans, you also have the option of purchasing additional OneDrive storage. Refer to the Further reading section in this chapter for a link to OneDrive plans and M365 subscriptions, and be aware that these storage amounts can often change.

With this vast amount of cloud storage available, why worry about archiving? The most important reasons I think are compliance and legal ones. Each country and industry will have its regulations and standards that must be followed for the security and retention of emails. With a tax audit or legal proceeding, you might have to go back to past emails and find related items. Another reason would be productivity. The more you have in your inbox, the slower your computer/Outlook will perform.

Note

The 50 GB option is not available in trial subscription accounts with M365. The increase of space from the free 15 GB option will not start until the trial subscription is over and the paid subscription has started.

There are three ways to archive in Outlook:

• Archive
• AutoArchive
• Online Archive

I will explain these three ways to help you choose which method or methods will work for you.

Archive

In Outlook 2016, a new Archive button appeared on the Home tab. This button moves your selected message from the inbox to the Archive folder. This is not an Archive folder; it’s a folder that has been created by M365, under the inbox.

Figure 12.5 – The Archive button

No real archiving is being completed with this step, but it is decluttering your inbox. I have heard this button referred to as fake archiving. Using this method will not reduce the size of your mailbox because it just resides in a different folder.

An advantage of this method is that email will not be cluttering up your inbox, and you will still be able to view the contents of this folder through Outlook on the web and with your Outlook mobile phone apps.

Note

Instead of using the button on the ribbon, you can use the shortcut keys Backspace to archive and Delete to delete the selected message.

AutoArchive

AutoArchive was introduced in Outlook 2003. It was created to help with the slow performance of overflowing mailboxes. AutoArchive is always running in the background, looking at all your mailbox folders. It will physically move your old emails from your folders to a separate data file on your computer, also known as a .pst file.

When the following dialog box appears, Outlook is prompting you to use AutoArchive.

Figure 12.6 – The AutoArchive warning

Once your emails have been auto-archived, they will reside in a separate group in the folder pane, as shown here.

Figure 12.7 – The archive group

This Archives folder is stored locally on your computer. These folders will not be saved to the cloud and will not be available on your phone apps.

You also have controls for setting up what you want to be auto-archived. Right-click on a folder to set the properties for that specific folder.

Click the Default Active Settings… button to set up additional AutoArchive actions, or select the radio button for the Archive this folder using these settings: option, as shown here.

Figure 12.8 – AutoArchive properties

At first, AutoArchive is not the most intuitive, but once you set it up the way you want and know that it is running quietly in the background, you will feel confident that your archive mail will be assessable. If you have limited mail server storage available to you, it is the best way to automatically get old items out of your folders where they are taking up space continuously.

Online Archive

This is the newest method for archiving and is also referred to as in-place archiving. This is the archiving that happens when you save to the cloud. Instead of saving your old items on your local drive, your emails will be saved in the cloud. This method was created to replace AutoArchive, which stores your files on your local computer. To access Online Archive, you must have an Exchange account, and more information can be found through the link in the further reading section of this chapter.

If your administrator has activated this for you, you will see it in the navigation pane as a separate group for Online Archive – email ID. Through the settings provided by your online Exchange admin, you will have the items to be archived sent to this Online Archive folder.

The advantage of this method is that all of your emails will be available to you on any device if it has an internet connection.

Backing up Outlook

If you are using M365 for Outlook, you can feel confident that your files are being backed up to the cloud. If you want another safeguard, you may want to consider backing up your Outlook objects via another method as well. There are two methods for backing up your files. One is exporting, and the other is to save emails outside of Outlook, which can mean having a backup copy on another computer, an external hard drive, or a folder such as the desktop on your computer. I also have found it handy to back up my Outlook files to a USB drive, as they get very large, and it is handy just to store this away from the computer or even use it to import those emails into another computer, not on your M365 account. You can have your cloud backup and offline backup.

Exporting and importing

Using the Import/Export feature in Outlook is a quick way to back up all your objects to a .pst file. Once exported, you can store the file on your computer or an external storage device, or even another computer:

1. To export the files, click on File | Open & Export | Import/Export.

Figure 12.9 – Import/Export

2. The Import and Export Wizard will open. Select Export to a file | Next >.

Figure 12.10 – The Import and Export Wizard

3. Select Outlook Data File (.pst) | Next >.

Figure 12.11 – Export to a File

4. The next step of the Wizard is to select the item that you want to export. Select the name of your email ID, as shown in Figure 12.12, or you can select an individual item, such as Inbox or Contacts. Also, check the Include subfolders box if desired. This is especially important if you created subfolders underneath the Inbox folder or other folders.
5. After making the desired selection, click the Next > button.

Figure 12.12 – Export Outlook Data File

6. In the next step of the Wizard, the default location for the backup will be shown in the Save exported file as: box. Click on the Browse… button and select the location or folder in which you would like to save the backup .pst file.

Figure 12.13 – Export Outlook Data File – Finish

You may choose to save the export on the computer you are using or to an external device, such as a USB drive or external hard drive. (Before saving to an external device, be sure that the size of the external drive is large enough for the data you are exporting.)

7. Click OK after entering a name or accepting the default name, and the path you selected will show in the Save Exported Data File dialog box. Select the option you desire for duplicate entries and click Finish to complete the Wizard.

Figure 12.14 – Saving the Outlook .pst data file

You will then be asked to enter and verify a password so that the file is password-protected when opening and importing the .pst file into Outlook. If you do not want a password, leave the two boxes blank, and click OK, which will finalize the steps for the Export Wizard, and your file will be saved or backed up to the location that you specified.

This method is most desirable if you want to select all the objects within Outlook, your inbox, and subfolders, or just your contacts or tasks.

To access these files, refer to the section in this chapter on restoring a .pst file.

Saving emails outside Outlook

Saving emails outside Outlook is an easy way to save your emails onto your computer, simply by saving that item to a folder by clicking on File | Save As.

Follow these steps to save your email to another location:

1. Open the message you want to save.
2. Choose a location in which to save your email message and enter a name for the file.
3. Ensure that you are saving the email as the type of file you want in the Save as type: drop-down list.

Figure 12.15 – The file Save As dialog box

When you open up one of these files, it opens by default in Outlook. These file types can also be opened in other applications or used within code if needed for the web.

The possible file Save as types are listed in the following table:

Table 12.16 – File Save As types

One of the reasons you would want to save a file with one of these types is to save the email into a folder with other items related to the message. This allows you to organize the email with other files from other applications, such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, enabling you to locate emails related to a project in one location.

When you open one of these files from within a folder, such as your desktop, by default, the item will open inside Outlook with the message in view.

Note

Although PDF is not a file Save As type for Outlook, you can save the email as a PDF file by choosing File | Save As | Print, and instead of choosing a printer, choose the Microsoft print to PDF option.

Click Print, and then save the file to the location you desire as prompted.

Restoring a .pst file

When you set up an Outlook account (excluding an Exchange account), a .pst file is automatically created. This .pst file is known as an Outlook data file. This name will typically be your email ID name with the .pst extension (for example, [email protected] or archive.pst):

1. To locate the data file that has been automatically created, click Home | New Items | More Items | Outlook Data File….

Figure 12.17 – The Outlook data file

2. The Create or Open Outlook Data file dialog box will open, showing the locations of the .pst files on your computer. To create a new data file or .pst file, change the name of the file (leaving the .pst). If you want to have a password associated with this file, check the Add Optional Password box.
3. Select the .pst file that you want to restore if the file was saved previously, which will show in the main window of the Create or Open Outlook Data File dialog box.

Figure 12.18 – Create or Open Outlook Data File

4. Once you click OK, the Add optional password dialog box will show, asking for a password to be assigned. Type the password again in the Verify Password: field to ensure that you have typed the password correctly and the two passwords match.

Figure 12.19 – Add optional password

5. Once this password is assigned, to use the saved .pst file, you will need to know the password that was assigned and enter it to use the .pst file.

Your actual passwords are hidden in the registry, and you cannot just access a list to recover these passwords. If you know the previous password and you saved it to the list, you can change the password by clicking File | Account Settings | Account Settings | Data Files and opening the name of the .pst file you are changing. In the Outlook Data File dialog box, click Change Password…. Be sure to check the Save this password in your password list box to be able to change the password later.

Figure 12.20 – Change Password

Note

Outlook .pst data file passwords are not a safeguard to prevent a malicious attempt to access your email. For added security, you should also set up a password-protected Windows user account for any user accessing the computer.

6. Once you click OK to complete this restore, the objects will appear in the navigation pane in Outlook, and if you backed up the entire Email folder, you will see it under the Outlook Data File heading. When you expand the folder, the subfolders will show exactly how you saved them previously.

Figure 12.21 – The navigation pane – the restored .pst file

When you are done viewing these items, you can close the data file by right-clicking on the heading and selecting Close “My Outlook Data File(1)”. This will help to avoid looking at a duplicate item heading in the navigation pane.

Figure 12.22 – Closing the Outlook data file

By closing the Outlook data files, you will not confuse the current files with the backed-up data files. If something did happen to the existing files, you can use this technique to bring in the backed-up files and use them as your data files within Outlook if your files became corrupted or were lost somewhere by accident.

Summary

Backup redundancy is never a bad thing if you want to feel confident that you will never lose any of your email items. Data centers are not 100% online all the time. In that rare moment when you need your email in one of these downtimes, you can feel confident in knowing that you will always have your items when you need them.

In the next chapter, we will discuss another one of Outlook’s greatest strengths, the power to collaborate with others. Knowing which programs are available to collaborate with from within Outlook and how to access and use these other applications, such as OneNote, Teams, Viva, and your mobile phones, will not only save you time but also help you work smart with Outlook.

Questions

1. Why can I not see the AutoArchive option in the Advanced tab of the Files | Options dialog box?
2. My Outlook environment is running slower than usual lately. How can I fix this?
3. Why do I keep getting a message saying my mailbox is full?
4. How can I repair my Outlook 365 account?
5. What is a .ost data file? My file shows .ost, not .pst.

Answers

1. AutoArchive is on the Advanced tab underneath the Outlook start and exit headings. If you do not see this, it is probably due to your IT department in your organization not giving you the rights on the server to access this feature. Another reason for this is that you have an Exchange account, and online archiving has been enabled for you with automatic settings.
2. If your inbox is storing a lot of emails, usually because you never delete any messages, you will want to check the size of your folders. Click File | Folder | properties | Storage. If you have more than 2 GB of emails used, you need to archive some of your emails.
3. This message appears when your PST file has reached its maximum storage limit. To fix this, you can manage the mailbox size by clicking File | Info | Tools | Mailbox Cleanup….
4. Occasionally, your files may become corrupt in Outlook. To repair them, click File | Account Settings… | Select the account to repair | Repair…. If you don’t have access to Outlook, you can run a repair in the Programs and Features object in the Windows Control Panel.
5. A .pst file is a file that is stored on your computer. This is typically the case for files created before Office 2016. If your file is a .ost file, you have a file that is maintained on an Exchange server, and you will need to contact the administrator of your M365 account to maintain this file.

Further reading

• Microsoft plans available for M365:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products

• How to manage .pst files in Microsoft Outlook:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/data-files/how-to-manage-pst-files