How to Archive Attachments in Outlook? Know Here
When you receive emails that contain several attachments, it becomes tedious to archive them one after other in Outlook. So, here will show you how to archive attachments in Outlook at once.
Did you ever notice that your Outlook gets slower and slower over time? Well, this happens because you often receive and send so many emails with heavy attachments in Outlook due to which Outlook starts exceeding its defined limit. While searching on the Internet, we’ve found there are various users facing this issue and ask for queries regarding Outlook archive attachments only, like following:
“Hello, I’m using Microsoft Outlook for so long and now it contains several emails with attachments, which are making it sluggish. I wanted to backup Outlook email attachments and save Outlook attachments to desktop with the creation of sub-folders according to the subject of the mail (for example: main folder name like ‘Inbox’ and under this file ‘Attachments’ then attachments of each email within email subject folder). Is there any technique to archive Outlook attachments? Any help would be appreciated highly!”
So, if you are the one those whose Outlook inbox contains so many unnecessary emails with essential attachments then, you must clean your inbox. But, if you cannot afford deleting your crucial attachments then you should backup Outlook attachments. After archiving heavy attachments, you can clean your Inbox and then your Outlook will start running as fast a the first day.
Reasons to Archive Email Attachments in Outlook – User Benefits
There are points to note when you archive your Outlook emails. User’s will get various advantages if they follow this routine on daily basis. Read those points in this particular section:
- It will create space in your mailbox storage when you archive large attachments.
- Save your important emails outside your Outlook to access them later while freeing up the space.
- By doing this, you can improve your file management and maintain in folders.
- You need to check and archive large OST & PST files stored in your inbox. As, it can become corrupt or you can’t even open it again.
How to Archive Attachments in Outlook? Manual Ways
After reading the above reasons, you have got the idea why we need to archive it. So, now let’s move with various methods to do it.
#1. Save Attachments From a Single Email Manually
This is the method which you are going to follow in order to archive attachments efficiently.
1. Open Outlook on your computer.
2. Navigate to the Inbox or other folder with the email with attachments.
3. Next, click the email containing multiple attachments to highlight them.
4. With the email selected:
- Select the File tab located in the upper left corner.
- Then, select Save Attachments.
5. You will see details of all the attachments in the email.
6. If there are multiple attachments:
- Hold Ctrl + A to select all or manually select attachments you want.
- Then tap on OK to move forward.
7. A file explorer window will pop up:
-
Select the folder location on your PC where you want to archive these attachments.
-
You can create a new folder here (e.g., “Invoice Attachments” or “Project X Files”).
-
Click OK or Save.
Now, all the selected attachments will now be saved to that folder which you have selected.
#2. Archive Attachments in Outlook Using VBA Script
If you are comfortable with programming codes, then using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) in Outlook can help you take attachments out of multiple emails at the same time.
- Open Microsoft Outlook.
- Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) editor.
- In the editor, click on Insert > Module button.
- A blank module window will appear.
Sub SaveAttachmentsFromSelectedEmails()
Dim olMail As Outlook.MailItem
Dim olAttachment As Outlook.Attachment
Dim saveFolder As String
Dim item As Object
Dim i As Integer
Dim fileName As String‘ Change this to your desired folder path
saveFolder = “C:\Users\YourUsername\Documents\OutlookAttachments\”‘ Check if folder exists; if not, create it
If Dir(saveFolder, vbDirectory) = “” Then
MkDir saveFolder
End If‘ Loop through selected items in Outlook
For Each item In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
If TypeName(item) = “MailItem” Then
Set olMail = item
For i = 1 To olMail.Attachments.Count
Set olAttachment = olMail.Attachments(i)
fileName = saveFolder & Format(olMail.ReceivedTime, “yyyymmdd_hhnnss_”) & olAttachment.FileName
olAttachment.SaveAsFile fileName
Next i
End If
NextMsgBox “All attachments saved to: ” & saveFolder
End Sub
- Not beginner friendly, you have to manually edit the code.
- Can’t filter by date, size, or file types without change to the script.
- Doesn’t auto sort by subject or sender unless script is extended.
- If a macro is buggy or only partially complete you may not see a failure.
- It only works with the selected emails in Outlook. Not with disconnected PST file.
Easily Archive Attachments in Outlook – Professional Solution
If your Outlook mailbox will become large in size then, it will stop sending or receiving emails soon. To prevent yourself from such scenarios, you can backup Outlook email attachments. There are multiple manual ways to make your Outlook archive attachments only but, these methods might result in the following errors:
- Outlook archive attachments missing
- Outlook archive without attachments
- Outlook archive large attachments only
Then what could be the ultimate solution? Read on further where we have disclosed a proven solution for the same.
Use SysTools Outlook Email Attachment Extractor wherein it effortlessly archive attachments in Outlook. It is capable to archive files from the latest Outlook 2019, 2016 & all the below versions. With the help of this software, you can bulk save attachments from multiple emails in Outlook in a single go and it allows to extract attachments from all Outlook email folders.
No matter which Outlook version you’re using as the software supports to archive attachments from both ANSI (created in older Outlook versions) and UNICODE (created in newer Outlook versions) PST files. The software is compatible with Windows 10 and all the below versions of Windows OS (both 32 and 64-Bit). It can extract PDF files from Outlook along with other multimedia items. The latest v4.0 of the tool offers all those demanding features which you are looking for!
We would like to draw your attention to the highlighted features rendered by the software:
- Swiftly archive Outlook attachments from different files such as PST, OST and BAK files
- Add single or bulk Outlook files using Add File (s) & Add Folder option
- Facility to exclude extracting attachments from Deleted Items & Junk folders
- Backup attachments from All Folders & Selective Folders as per the requirement
- Apply date filter to extract selective attachments by setting the date range
- Option to Include/Exclude file types while extracting Outlook attachments
- Make use of size filter option to archive attachments with respect to the specified size
Simple Tool Steps to Archive Outlook Attachments
- First of all, you have to download the tool. Hit the download button below.
- Choose Auto Locate MS Outlook Default Storage Location option to add PST file.
- Choose the Select Item type such as Emails, Calendar, Task, Contacts, and Journals.
- Avail various advanced options such as date-filter, size-filter, include/exclude file types, etc.
- After all the necessary settings are applied, click Extract to begin archiving attachments.
- Finally, at the mentioned folder path, the extracted attachments will be saved.
Tool For Mac
If you want to archive attachments from Mac Outlook, then you can try the Mac version the same tool.
Eventually, Access Archived Outlook Attachments
In order to make sure your Outlook email attachments are archived successfully, go to the location where you’ve saved the attachments. Here you will get all your attachments as per selected folder structure and you can access these archived attachments from any supported applications.
Conclusion
Microsoft Outlook allows to store up to 50 GB emails. Although this is so much of storage, it can still happen that your mailbox reaches saturation pretty quickly because of large attachments. So, archiving essential email attachments can free up space and in this write up, we’ve shown you an amazing solution to resolve how to archive attachments in Outlook issue in a couple of clicks even without losing your data. Hope this might be helpful to you!
Frequently Asked Questions
Ans. The manual process is quite time-consuming and the steps are also tedious. Hence, we recommend you to make the best use of SysTools Outlook Attachment Extractor which is capable to extract attachments from bulk emails in no time.
Ans. First, you need to select the email message from which the attachments need to be archived. Then, right-click on it and choose Save All Attachments options and click OK. However, this procedure must be executed for every single email message to extract the attachments.
Ans. Using this remarkable Outlook Attachment Extractor software, first you need to archive the attachments with respect to the emails. After that, using the Print option, get your attachment files easily printed.