WBA Tech Tip of the Month: Clean Up Email Folders to Improve Mail Performance

Whether you use Outlook, Outlook Express, or another email client program, performance is affected most by the emails contained in the main Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folders. Allowing these folders to reach thousands (for some users, tens of thousands) of emails can dramatically slow the processing of mail or cause the program to crash completely.

Empty your email Deleted Items folder frequently (deleted emails do not move to the Windows Recycle Bin). The Deleted Items folder IS NOT a storage location for your saved emails; if you want to hang onto your emails, create additional folders and save your mail there, not in the Deleted Items Folder.

Your Inbox should never have more than your most current emails. Whenever you access this folder, Windows regenerates the Œview¹; the more emails within the folder, the more memory needed to display the information and the longer the processing time required. Once you exceed a few thousand emails, processing time starts counting in minutes rather than seconds. The same is true of the Sent Items folder. Although people don¹t typically view this folder, every sent email gets copied here (assuming this feature is turned on). The greater the number of emails already in that folder, the longer it takes to add another one.

Create subfolders under Inbox and Sent Items and move older emails out of the main mail folders. In Outlook or Outlook Express, simply right-click on Inbox or Sent Items, create a New Folder, give it a name and click OK. Drag email(s) to the new folder. In Outlook, you can also us the email Archive feature, which automatically moves older emails from the Inbox and Sent Items folders to a separate Archive folder structure located below your normal folder list.

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