If you are using Outlook 2010 as your email client for a considerable period of time, you will notice that the PST file that stores your calendar entries, email messages, and other stuff keeps growing bigger and bigger, eventually clogging up your space and slowing you down. If you need to keep Outlook clean and run faster and smoother, it is recommended that you archive older email. In this Outlook 2010 tutorial, we’ll show you how to archive email in Outlook 2010 in a few quick steps.
Archiving email in Outlook 2010 is not the same as making a backup of your email. When you do a backup, you are essentially making a copy of the Outlook items. When you archive email, you are moving them to a separate Outlook data file or PST file. Archived email can always be accessed again by opening up the PST.
Outlook 2010 includes a specific feature for this purpose called AutoArchive, which is meant to automatically archive older email on a regular basis. You can also make a manual archive of your Outlook items to supplement AutoArchive. The reason why you would prefer to do a manual archive is that you have more flexibility over what you want archived, such as which folders you want included in the process.
Let’s take a look at how to archive emails in Outlook manually as well as using AutoArchive.
To Manually Archive Email in Outlook 2010
1. Launch Outlook 2010 and select the File tab.
2. Click Cleanup Tools and from the dropdown list, select Archive.
3. In the Archive dialog box that opens up, ensure that Archive this folder and all subfolders option is selected. Now select the folder that you want to archive. All subfolders in your selected folder will automatically be included in the archive.
4. In the Archive items older than, field, click the calendar and select a date. All email, calendar appointments and other items before this date will be archived. You can check the Include items with “Do Not Archive” checked checkbox if you want to override any items from the archiving process.
5. In the Archive file text box, click Browse and navigate to the location where you want to save your PST archive. You can also retain the default location mentioned in the dialog. Give the archive file a specific name if you want to. Click OK.
Your Archive will now be saved to the specified location. Just remember that this is a manual archive, so you will have to remember to do it again at frequent intervals.
You can also set Outlook to automatically do an archive regularly.
To Archive Email in Outlook 2010 Using AutoArchive
1. Select the File tab.
2. Click Options.
3. In the Options dialog box, click Advanced.
4. In the AutoArchive section, click AutoArchive Settings.
5. In the AutoArchive dialog box, in the Run AutoArchive every text box, select the frequency with which you want Outlook to do an archive.
6. Select additional options if you so desire. You can enable or disable options to prompt you before an auto archive runs, set the date before which items should be auto archived, change the location of the archive, allow for folders in your archive list, or permanently delete older items.
7. When you have made the necessary changes, click OK.
The Auto Archive will automatically be set to run on the specified days.
If you want to turn AutoArchive off, type a zero for the number of days.
How to Turn off AutoArchive
If you no longer want to archive email automatically, you can turn off AutoArchive. To do this:
1. Select the File tab and click Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, click Advanced.
3. In the AutoArchive section, click AutoArchive Settings.
4. Uncheck the Run AutoArchive every n days check box.
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How to Archive Email in Outlook 2010
Now that you have learned how to archive email in Outlook 2010, you can go ahead and maintain your Outlook Inbox efficiently.
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