Outlook won't archive

  • Thread starter Thread starter David
  • Start date Start date
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David

I have the archive setting set to move items (emails) to
the corresponding archive folders that are over 6 mo.
old. However, the mail folders are created in the
archive, but the items don't move. Archive is about 64K
and the outlook.pst is 188Mb. Any suggestions?
 
David said:
I have the archive setting set to move items (emails) to
the corresponding archive folders that are over 6 mo.
old. However, the mail folders are created in the
archive, but the items don't move. Archive is about 64K
and the outlook.pst is 188Mb. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Besides the auto-archive settings you must individually set for each
folder (or use the option under the global AutoArchive setting to set
all folders to use the same settings), you also have to enable
AutoArchive to run (i.e., you have to schedule it). It's a 2-part
process: configure the folder's auto-archive settings and then enable
the AutoArchive global option so it actually runs.

If you set a folder to auto-archive every week but schedule AutoArchive
to run once a month then obviously no weekly auto-archiving gets done
until the monthly archive actually gets ran to detect all those pending
archivals.

Also, Outlook does the archiving. If Outlook isn't running then it
cannot execute its AutoArchive function. However, Outlook waits until
it has been idle for awhile before it starts the background archiving,
but Microsoft has never elucidated as to how long is this idle interval.
So if you bounce into Outlook to check your e-mails, write some new
ones, and then exit Outlook, then it will never be idle long enough to
start its AutoArchive function.

Archiving will move files. This means the original gets deleted after
the copy gets put in the other .pst file. Okay, but deleting files does
not actually remove them from the original .pst file. They only get
*marked* as deleted (which means you won't have access to them anymore
within Outlook). All these delete-marked items still consume space in
the .pst file. You need to compact the .pst file to physically purge
all the delete-marked items out of the .pst file. AutoArchive does not
automatically run compaction after it completes.
 
-----Original Message-----


Besides the auto-archive settings you must individually set for each
folder (or use the option under the global AutoArchive setting to set
all folders to use the same settings), you also have to enable
AutoArchive to run (i.e., you have to schedule it). It's a 2-part
process: configure the folder's auto-archive settings and then enable
the AutoArchive global option so it actually runs.

If you set a folder to auto-archive every week but schedule AutoArchive
to run once a month then obviously no weekly auto- archiving gets done
until the monthly archive actually gets ran to detect all those pending
archivals.

Also, Outlook does the archiving. If Outlook isn't running then it
cannot execute its AutoArchive function. However, Outlook waits until
it has been idle for awhile before it starts the background archiving,
but Microsoft has never elucidated as to how long is this idle interval.
So if you bounce into Outlook to check your e-mails, write some new
ones, and then exit Outlook, then it will never be idle long enough to
start its AutoArchive function.

Archiving will move files. This means the original gets deleted after
the copy gets put in the other .pst file. Okay, but deleting files does
not actually remove them from the original .pst file. They only get
*marked* as deleted (which means you won't have access to them anymore
within Outlook). All these delete-marked items still consume space in
the .pst file. You need to compact the .pst file to physically purge
all the delete-marked items out of the .pst file. AutoArchive does not
automatically run compaction after it completes.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the quick reply. However, I do have all my
folders set to "archive items in this folder using the
archive settings." Periodicity is set at 7 days.
However, the program asks to archive at the 7 day mark,
but does not move items. If I manually start the archive,
the same thing happens. Suggestions?
 
-----Original Message-----


Besides the auto-archive settings you must individually set for each
folder (or use the option under the global AutoArchive setting to set
all folders to use the same settings), you also have to enable
AutoArchive to run (i.e., you have to schedule it). It's a 2-part
process: configure the folder's auto-archive settings and then enable
the AutoArchive global option so it actually runs.

If you set a folder to auto-archive every week but schedule AutoArchive
to run once a month then obviously no weekly auto- archiving gets done
until the monthly archive actually gets ran to detect all those pending
archivals.

Also, Outlook does the archiving. If Outlook isn't running then it
cannot execute its AutoArchive function. However, Outlook waits until
it has been idle for awhile before it starts the background archiving,
but Microsoft has never elucidated as to how long is this idle interval.
So if you bounce into Outlook to check your e-mails, write some new
ones, and then exit Outlook, then it will never be idle long enough to
start its AutoArchive function.

Archiving will move files. This means the original gets deleted after
the copy gets put in the other .pst file. Okay, but deleting files does
not actually remove them from the original .pst file. They only get
*marked* as deleted (which means you won't have access to them anymore
within Outlook). All these delete-marked items still consume space in
the .pst file. You need to compact the .pst file to physically purge
all the delete-marked items out of the .pst file. AutoArchive does not
automatically run compaction after it completes.
Click to expand...

Vanguard:
One more thing, I have used the scanpst.exe program over
both the outlook.pst and archive.pst files and there were
no errors or problems with the files. Very confusing!

Thanks again,
Dave
 
Hi -

Outlook has several criteria for archiving: See MSKB 260212 and 180986
Although these articles refer to OL98, I believe the criteria still hold for
later versions of OL.

Item type Archive date

E-mail message The sent or received date, whichever is later; or the
last modification date and time.
Appointment The appointment date or the last modification date and
time, whichever is later.
Task The completion date or the last modification date and time.
Tasks that are not marked complete are not AutoArchived.
Tasks assigned to others are archived only if they are marked
complete.
Note The last modification date and time.
Journal entry The date the journal entry was created or the last
modification date and time.
Contact Not archived


What this boils down to is that:
If you keep looking at the stuff you want to get archived, it's last
modification date keeps getting updated, and therefore the items never
qualify for archiving


-Tom
 
Thanks for the quick reply. However, I do have all my
folders set to "archive items in this folder using the
archive settings." Periodicity is set at 7 days.
However, the program asks to archive at the 7 day mark,
but does not move items. If I manually start the archive,
the same thing happens. Suggestions?
Click to expand...

The date used when archiving is the modified date, not the creation
date. The create date is what you normally see in the date column. If
you edit or move an item to a different folder then its modify date gets
updated. You might have items with dates over 2 years old but if you
just moved them into a folder a couple days ago then none of their
modified dates will be over the 1 week expiration you've configured for
auto-archive.
 
-----Original Message-----
__________________________________________________________
__ __________________________________________________________
__

The date used when archiving is the modified date, not the creation
date. The create date is what you normally see in the date column. If
you edit or move an item to a different folder then its modify date gets
updated. You might have items with dates over 2 years old but if you
just moved them into a folder a couple days ago then none of their
modified dates will be over the 1 week expiration you've configured for
auto-archive.

--
__________________________________________________________ __
*** Post replies to newsgroup. E-mail is not accepted. ***
__



.
Click to expand...
 
Tom,

Thanks for the reply. I don't know how I would be doing
this, but will look into it.

Thanks again,
David
 
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