How to Reduce Mailbox Size in Outlook: Explained Guide
Management of mailbox size in MS Outlook is important as it ensures high & smooth performance, avoids corruption, and to be in storage capacity. You might be noticing, sometimes Outlook isn’t working, becoming slow, full of bugs and errors. So, in this article, we’ll discuss how to reduce Outlook mailbox size using both manual and automated methods effectively and efficiently.
Why is Reducing Outlook Mailbox Size Important?
If the mailbox size is becoming bigger & bigger, Outlook may stop working, performance might slow down, or even crash while working on it. So, before getting into the solution, know why there is a need to reduce Outlook mailbox size:
- It improves performance as when mailbox is smaller then it will load more quickly and run very smoothly.
- Reduce Outlook storage leads to the prevention of corrupted PST or OST files.
- When we decrease Outlook mailbox size, it avoids errors like Outlook Mailbox Full or mailbox is becoming full, time to upgrade to a larger mailbox.
- When there is a small PST file, then it becomes easier to manage in migration or taking a backup.
How to Check Outlook Inbox Size?
Before you start to reduce Outlook mailbox size, check out your actual size by following these steps:
- Navigate to Outlook
- Go to File, click Tools, and then Mailbox Cleanup
- Press on View Mailbox Size.
- Find out the size of each folder manually for total size of Outlook mailbox.
It tells you the proper and exact size of the Outlook folders, like spam, inbox, and sent as where the space is consumed more.
5 Effective Methods to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size
Many best ways can help in reducing Outlook mailbox size, some are given below:
- Delete Unnecessary Emails and Attachments
- Use Outlook Cleanup Tool
- Archive Old Emails
- Compact Outlook PST File
- Using an Automated Method
Let’s discover them with an explanation:
#1 How to Reduce Outlook Data File Size by Deleting Unnecessary Emails
It is fastest way to reduce Outlook mailbox size, as in this method you’ve to just delete emails which are unwanted according to you.
Steps to use:
- Filter or sort your emails by subject, size, date, etc
- Also, delete many attached files like documents, newspapers.
- If you want to permanently delete everything, then also remove items from deleted items folders, junk folder, etc.
Recommend: How to Delete Multiple Emails in Outlook?
- It immediately reduce mailbox size in Outlook
- This method is very simple and also free to use
- As it’s a manual method, there might be a risk of accidental deletion of data.
- It is very time-consuming method for reducing Outlook mailbox size.
#2 How to Compact Outlook Mailbox: Using Cleanup Tool
If you’re an Outlook user, you’ve used the built-in tool which is cleanup tool, which allows you to remove unwanted emails which is bigger, like 50 MB or emails that are older than 100 days.
Steps to use:
1. Navigate to Outlook file, click Tools, then Mailbox Cleanup
2. Select folders like inbox, spam, sent, etc or emails to clean up.
3. Pop-up will show you to choose:
- Clean up Conversation
- Clean up Folder
- Clean up Subfolder
4. Then, click on cleanup to confirm to reduce Outlook mailbox size.
- No installation required as it’s a built-in tool in Outlook.
- Also, using this method is very secure & quick.
- It only works for emails, not other messages.
- This method doesn’t make other attached files reduced in size.
#3 Archive Old Emails
Does archive in Outlook reduce mailbox size? Yes, archiving helps a lot in reducing Outlook mailbox size as it takes older data and makes the size of original PST file smaller.
Steps to use:
- Navigate to File, click Tools and then Clean Up Old Items
- Choose folders like spam, inbox, sent, etc.
- Select a Date & Location to Move Older Items.
- It keeps emails without deleting them and makes mailbox space free.
- All emails that have been archived are stored separately in different folders.
- This method cannot be done automatically unless it’s set.
#4 How to Compact Outlook Mailbox PST File
If your Outlook mailbox reaches its capacity after deleting or archiving, then you are left with last option, which is to compress the PST file
Steps to use:
- Go to File, then click on Account Settings
- Press on Data Files button
- Choose your Outlook file, navigate to Settings, and then Compact Now
- It becomes very easy and quick to compress after cleanup.
- This method compresses the PST file permanently.
- This effect becomes zero if space isn’t removed first.
Note: This is manual method and there is also risk of accidental deletion, so we recommend using an automated solution like SysTools PST Compress Tool, which allows you to compact pst file in few seconds without shifting any data structure. It keeps everything intact. It has a user-friendly interface so that users don’t face any problems.
#5 How to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Using a Professional Tool
If all of the above methods haven’t fulfilled your needs, then you should make your PST files in half by using an automated method, which is SysTools PST Splitter Tool, which allows you to split your file by many filters like size, folder, date, email address, etc. It allows you to prevent files from corruption, as file is already very large.
Also, the tool doesn’t modify or harm any of the user’s data. This tool is easy to use and works quickly in the simple steps given below.
Steps for Reducing Outlook Mailbox Size
- Install and run the automated software on your system.
- Click Add files and folders to upload supported files.
- Select the Split Option by size, date, year, folder, email address, and category.
- Check the Summary of split information and then press Next to split Outlook file.
- You can see that your file has been Split into two halves.
Benefits of this Automation Method to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size
- This software can make a single file into two according to size, folder, date, year, etc.
- It can break out the file size from 1 MB to 1 TB.
- Supports all versions of Microsoft Outlook.
- A standalone tool, so no installation of other software is required.
- Provide a CSV file of the user’s email addresses to split files by multiple emails.
Note: Many users are facing the problem of duplication of emails in their mailboxes, which results in storage space issues, slowing down of performance in Outlook, so to prevent these issues ann to reduce Outlook mailbox size, then you should use SysTools Outlook Duplicate Remover software which helps to delete the duplicates and make the PST data file size reduced.
Best Preventive Tips to Know How to Reduce Mailbox Size in Outlook
Some top ways to keep your Outlook mailbox size under control are as follows:
- You are required to archive your MS Outlook mailbox quarterly or monthly, as per your usage.
- Always keep and save your attachments to server or your system instead of your emails.
- If a lot of spam emails arriving your Outlook mailbox, then you should use filters to sort and manage them.
- If you want to permanently delete, then don’t forget to empty from deleted items folder in Outlook.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed how to reduce Outlook mailbox size using best manual and automated methods so that your Outlook and your system don’t crash while working on it. However, we’ll recommend using an automated solution for reducing Outlook mailbox size as it is safer, secure, and quicker. Also, they are best tools when we have to split or compress a large Outlook PST data file.
FAQs on How to Compact Outlook Mailbox
Q.1 How do I reduce the size of my Outlook mailbox?
- Delete unnecessary emails and attachments.
- Archive old emails to free up space.
- Use the Mailbox Clean-Up tool to identify large items.
- Compact the mailbox to reduce its size.
- Consider increasing mailbox storage if using an Exchange server.
Q.2 Does Archive in Outlook Reduce Mailbox Size?
A. Yes, archiving moves old emails to a separate file to reduce Outlook mailbox size.
Q.3 What is the mailbox size limit exceeded in Outlook?
- For Outlook 2007 and 2003: 20 GB.
- For Outlook 2010 and later: 50 GB.
- Exceeding these limits can lead to performance issues and data corruption