E-mail Management - Tips & Tricks

NOTE: this page has NOT been updated recently and may contain outdated information.

Periodically purging e-mail clutter can save you time, energy, and frustration and will also assist in keeping the e-mail system operating efficiently and reduce storage and backup expenses.

 

Housecleaning your E-mail Box (in 10 minutes or less):

NOTE: use the full MS Outlook application, not the Webmail version to utilize and take advantage of these e-mail housekeeping tips.

Use the following techniques to group and locate "blocks" of e-mails that you could quickly identify as unneeded and delete. The e-mails of most concern to IT staff are those containing huge attachment files (such as videos, photos, large MS Publisher files, etc).

You can eliminate e-mails individually, or by selecting multiple emails by using the SHIFT or CTRL keys, or you can delete all messages from a source by right clicking on the heading for that group of e-mails and then selecting Delete.

  1. “Arrange By Attachments” – Deleting e-mails with large attachments is the most effective method to quickly free up space. Click and select the "Arrange By Attachments" heading at the top of the listing of e-mails.
  2.  “Arrange By From” – sort e-mails according to WHO sent them – Useful if you know that emails from a certain sender are no longer needed.
  3. “Arrange by Subject” – sort and locate categories of e-mail by subject that are no longer needed.
  4. “Arrange By Date” – allows you to group and delete older e-mails that are no longer needed.
  5. There are also other sort options that may be helpful in identifying and grouping e-mails together that are no longer needed for easy bulk deletion.
  6. Check other folders that you may have created for messages that you no longer need.
  7.  Check and clean out the “Junk E-mail” Folder. This directory could be huge if you have never cleaned it out.
  8. Use the above techniques to also clean out your “Sent Items” email folder. This directory could also be huge if you have never cleaned it out.
  9. Finally go to your “Deleted Items” folder. You should be able to “Select All” (Ctrl + A) and delete all the items in this folder. Use tip #3below if your would like to configure Outlook to automatically delete any messages in your deleted folder every time you close Outlook - this will save you time and space! 

Note: another good option is to "archive" your e-mail prior to a certain date to a CD or DVD.
Contact the HelpDesk at 475-6488 (ext. 6488), if you would like assistance with this option.

Additional e-mail management topics:

  1. How to check your College Outlook e-mail mailbox folder size

  2. How to configure Microsoft Outlook to archive older e-mail messages for better storage

  3. Configuring Outlook to automatically get rid of e-mail stored in your Deleted Items box

Did You Know?

When you need to send a message/attachment file out to the College community, post the message in the "Employee News" section of the website and upload the attachment(s), as part of the news story. This is more efficient since there is only ONE copy of the attachment, as opposed to an email with an attachment that gets replicated and sent to every e-mail box in the send list.

 

MS Training Resources:

  1. Microsoft Outlook 365 Training

  2. Microsoft 365 Training (all MS programs)