Outlook

[spjinjin]

Hi,

Need suggestions on how to effectively organise outlook .PST folders.

My main jobs can be broadly classified into Administration, Recruitment. So I am planning to put all Team, Manager, HR, Event, Awards, Procurement, Company related emails into one PST for Admin. Keep a separate one for Recruitment as I receive a lot of emails with CV, Interview Feedbacks, Offers. OR the option is to keep Admin & Recruitment in together and keep the Send folder separate.

Main intention is to stay out of the 2GB limit for PST with Outlook. Any ideas?

Thanks & Regards,
Sheena

Thanks & regards,
Sheena

[JessW]

My only suggestion for this is a bit long-winded but works.

You will need to save your emails into the relevant works/project folder (on the network if you use one or your hard drive if not)then they can be deleted from outlook but you still have a viable copy to keep.  If you keep this method up to date it should not take you too long and will guarantee you don't go over your limit.

Of course, for immediate organisation you can always have sub-folders to sort the stuff out.

NB, when saving your emails, remember to save as message format(I think it is that one!) otherwise the entire exercise is pointless and the save message will NOT have any attachments saved with it, as per the original message.

Hope this helps.

Jess

[jodith]

If you are concerned about going over your limit, then use your autoarchive function.  This will enable you to save your e-mails without going over your limit, and you still have access to your archives in Outlook.  I set my auto-archive for 6 months, but if that isn't enough, you can set it for lower.  Then you can just sort e-mail into various sub-folders.  They will be archived to the same folders in the archive.

Just remember, though, to locate your archives folder on a network drive so it gets backed up regularly if your network doesn't back up individual PCs.  You don't want to lose your e-mails to a hard drive crash.

Jodith

[JessW]

I wouldn't trust auto-archive if my job depended on it.  Plus my previous experience meant that auto-archive could not be set to that particular network drive, hence my suggestion (which also means that all relevant project/matter details are kept and archived together for ease of reference).

[jodith]

Hmmm....I've never had an issue with auto-archive.  And the archives are accessible right in Outlook, in a second set of folders.  At least, it is in Outlook 2003.  It didn't do that in 2000.  You had to import them whenever you wanted them.  It works a lot better in 2003.  I love auto-archive now.

While some older networks will still limit how much data you can keep on the server, harddrive space has become so cheap that most networks allow much more data storage than they used to.  So I archive my e-mail into my network drive, which has plenty of room, and it keeps my Outlook mailbox from responding sluggishly when I try to resort things.  A win-win situation in most places.

Jodith

[misslynn]

I also use auto-archive and never have a problem.  I would love a 2GB mailbox limit, my company I only have 50MB and am constantly going over my size limit.  With auto-archive, I can save older e-mails directly to my computer and access them at any time from Outlook.

[spjinjin]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will try what Jess has suggested. Its time consuming but sounds like its safe and workable. Thanks Jess.

Regards,
Jinjin