Archiving Outlook mail intelligently

November 16, 2006 6:37 AM

How can I manage my email archives more effectively and efficiently using Microsoft Outlook?

At work I use Microsoft Outlook 2003 - and I want to manage my archives more efficiently.

I've been with the company for 18 months in a position where I recieve a lot of mail - I religiously remove all large attachments and have a sensible and efficient structure for storing those. However, the company also has a cap on email files at 200mb and this is not sufficient for me (it is also non-negotiable - I decided that I would turn the auto-archive function ON and let my mailbox decide when and where to archive my mail. This was a big mistake.

Now I have a 1gb+ mail archive with everything older than 1 month in it - navigation and searching has become cumbersome and inefficient - and I want to handle this more intelligently. (notwithstanding the fact I have a laptop upgrade coming and moving wrangling many 1 gig files around will not be fun).

Is there a methodology for setting up archives to run on monthly basis - e.g. Oct 2007, Nov 2007, Dec 2007 with mail being archived into individual .psts? This would be more manageable and I could find things a little easier. I don't mind if its a bolt-on tool - although if I could find a way of setting this up myself, I would probably feel more joy.

I know that I can select all the mail pre a specific date and move it into a private folder, however that loses all internal folder structure.

I also know I could bounce my mail to an external client like gmail and then use the search facility, but that is a) against company policy for security and b) would fill up even the 2gb limit eventually. I would prefer a sustainable solution.

My search-fu has let me down on this, as has getting to the library and looking in some Outlook books - now hive mind, please hope me!

posted by mattr to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I break things up by hand into quarterly .psts, and the realy hum-dinger with Outlooks is that you can't (as far as I know) search a union of folders (like you can with Mail.app). So it can be a pain to track something down when looking in 3 or 4 folders.

If there's a way to search a union of folders in Outlook that I don't know, hope me!
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2006

Google Desktop Search works great for searching through all your mail, in my experience.

I have no archiving experience since it's against my company policy to keep mail back that far, but I've had a lot of luck with using categories and a system of flags beyond simple filing into folders. Then, you can use Search Folders (Outlook 2003 and later, I believe) to pull messages together regardless of where they're filed.
posted by mikeh at 6:59 AM on November 16, 2006

Copernic Desktop is another search tool that i prefer to Google Desktop. It returns your searches in a better format - it looks like your email rather than like searchign through Google.

For archiving, you may want to look at something like Auto-Mate. I believe it can help you with your situation. It's not free, but it's not exactly expensive either. There's probably something out there that will do the same thing for free.
posted by bDiddy at 7:10 AM on November 16, 2006

If you want to keep the folder structure, what you can do is copy the PST itself, and then delete anything from the copied PST that doesn't match your date range you want in the archive.

That's what I do anyway. I break the PST files down by year instead of month for archiving. I also have an Active PST file which includes my current year plus typically 3 to 6 months from the previous year as we move from one year to another. I find that makes it a little easier to search during transition periods.

There are a ton of Outlook utilities at Slipstick, so if there are any tools to help with this, you'd probably find them there.
posted by willnot at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2006

I know you're looking more for strategies than tools, but I could not function without Nelson Email Organizer.
posted by troyer at 8:58 AM on November 16, 2006