Saving Email

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Gersten
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike Gersten

What is the best way to sort and save email? I tend to
create folders within the Inbox and file according to
person, company, subject, etc. When the email has
attachments, the .pst file becomes large. If I save the
attachments to the hard drive how can I organize the
associated emails? What is the physical limit of .pst
files? What is the practical limit?
 
It's quite personal how you sort your mail. It also depends on how many
mails you get and how often. A couple of subfolders to organize your mail is
good but don't create to many subfolders or you are getting deorganized
again.

The physical limit is 2GB. For Outlook 2003 data files it is 20GB. The
practical limit is the smaller the better of course. Some computer are
starting to perform poorly when the data file is "just" a couple of 100MB's
while other can reach the 1,5GB without a problem.

I always stipp my Sent Items folder from attachments as I can reach all
those file normally (otherwise I couldn't sent them). When the attachment
has nothing to do with the content of the mail I also strip the incoming
mail from it's attachment. Somtimes the content of the mail can be ignored
so I'll delete the mail as well. When you can't see the mail apart from the
attachment you might have no other option than saving it either in the
mailbox or on the harddrive together. It's up to you.

I always start a new pst-file at New Year's day so I can archive the old
one. I advised some of my users to do this every 3 months. This depends on
what you are saving and how fast your pst-file grows.

There are some tools for archiving as well;
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.htm

But you should always ask yourself; Do I really need to save this!???

Hope this helps!
 
2gb size limit, currently, though problems can occur when larger than 1.7gb
Use the Archive option, if neccessary create multiple archives. You can set
options for archive in each folder.
David
 
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