Finding large messages in Outlook and archiving?

[concept2]

Any Outlook / exchange experts..

At work i use Outlook 2003 (with exchange i imagine as we have calendar and live meeting and all sorts) and i understand i have several GB of mail - it may be nearer 5 but we have a "vault" that moves them after a month so they seem smaller but take longer to load. (This still works when the laptop is off the network so i think they are also stored offline) This is in a large corporate environment so i am not an admin. I am not being asked to reduce my mail box size but i understand outlook itself and also searches etc will be quicker if i did reduce the size.

The question is, can i establish where the bulk of the mail is - quantity and size so i can then identify if i do need it or can delete. I am thinking of a diskstate type tool that can say how many MB etc are in a given folder? I have tried a search folder set for messages over say x MB but the vault seems to fool it and they report as small?

Finally can i archive folders of messages and then copy onto CD for use if required. We used Lotus Notes some years ago and that allowed me to export to an archive which i burnt onto a disk. If required this disk could be accessed from Notes.

Any thoughts on mail management welcome. Equally if the view is it will make litle difference whether i have a 1GB or 5GB mailbox then i will carry on as is.

Thanks

[league67]

Select folder that you want in outlook, properties , folders sizes (or similar).

[randlemarcus]

Outlook search will allow you to search for large files (search / advanced) i.e over a certain size.
If you are using a vault, see if there's a way of forcing those in earlier, rather than relying on your own archive.

Windows Desktop Search will also search Outlook files - I dont know about the particular Vault you use, but a quick Google ought to reveal whether it does or not.

Personal archives - 50/50 on that answer. Yes, you can create your own files (PST files), but they are size limited to around 2Gb (things go pop after that), are a bit of a mare when it comes to backup and recovery, especially when your IT sorts scowl at you for poo-pooing their Strategic Information Management Strategy
Also, unlike Notes, PST files are only accessible from a write capable Media - a USB stick or the HDD will do. Best bet if you are going down that path is to save it very regularly indeed.

Or really annoy your Exchange guys, and forward everything you want to save to a Google account, then delete it

[concept2]

Thanks for the info.

The right click and properties is difficult as i have many folders and subfolders etc. I will have a look in advanced find as i have not used size before in there.

The pst thing may be an option and its useful to know the media has to be writable as i would have used write once optical

[malman]

you can also right click on the column headings in a folder and add "size" to the list from the field chooser. you can drag it about to re-order the columns to say get size on the far left. Then clicking on size heading puts all the big mails at the top regardless of date. This is handy for bringing all of the mails with attachments to the top and allowing you to see how big they so you can do a cull.

[Smiler.]

I don't archive, I export selected folders or the whole lot to a named '.pst' file. The files can then be opened from File>Open>Outlook Data File.

The trick is to change the name from the default "Personal Folders" to the name of the saved file in the 'Create Microsoft Personal Folder' box. That way, when I open the file, it appears in the folder list as a recognisable file as oppose to "Personal Folders", which can be very confusing if several are open at once.

[concept2]

Thanks Smiler i will try that export thing as i have an "archive" folder with old projects and stuff in.