How To Archive in Microsoft Outlook

PART I – Creating an Archive in Outlook

  1. Open Microsoft Outlook

  2. Go to File on the menu bar

  3. Scroll down and select Archive (about mid way down)

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 1

  4. The archive dialogue box will open

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 2

  5. Now from here select the folder you want to archive…you can select ‘personal folders’ which will archive your entire Outlook directory structure (not recommended). You can select ‘Inbox’, ‘Outbox’, ‘Contacts’ or sub folders within a particular folder…whatever you want. I’d recommend archiving individual folders or subfolders as in the example below, I expanded my ‘Inbox’ and I am selecting ‘A050470-Lakeshore to be archived:

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 3

  6. Next tell it the items older than a particular date to archive. So lets say we are in October and you want to archive all A05047-Lakeshore e-mails in your inbox prior to September 1, 2009…then select that date. Once you start archiving regularly, then there should be much to archive each session. You can ignore the check box for ‘Include items with “Do not Auto Archive” checked. And finally select a destination to save the archive PST file (eventually this will be the project mail folder):

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 4

  7. Repeat steps 1 through 6 for each folder you wish to archive.

    PART II – Opening / Closing an Archive Folder that has been created

  8. OK. Now that you have archived a file…how do I reopen it you ask? Easy. Once again, go to the File menu and scroll down to ‘Open’ and the sub-fly-out menu call ‘Outlook Data File’:

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 5

  9. The ‘Open Outlook Data File’ dialogue box will open. From there, select the PST file location you are looking for and find the PST file you want to open. In the example below I went to my ‘PST Outlook backup’ folder in my PM Tools folder on the K drive and selected my ‘01APR08 to 31May08 Outbox.pst’:

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 6

  10. Select OK or double click the .pst file. Outlook then adds a folder to your folder tree structure on the left side called ‘Archive Folders’. Expand this folder and you will find your outlook archive from April 1 to May 31:

    Microsoft Outlook Screenshot 7

  11. You can utilize this folder just like any normal outlook folder. When you are done with it. Select the ‘Archive Folder’, right click on it and choose ‘Close Archive Folder’. You always want to closet the archive folders when you are done with them as they are typically saved on the network (which makes Outlook slower) and it keeps them from possibly getting corrupted by a virus or with Outlook startups and shutdowns.

  12. That’s it…you’ve mastered archiving! Congratulations!

Additional Note:

A .pst file is the native Microsoft Outlook extension for all Outlook data. Each day you open Outlook and utilize the files and message, Outlook is saving to a .pst file on your desktop. By archiving your Outlook data on a consistant basis, you avoid catastrophe and loss of valuable data (e-mails). It has been a quirk with Microsoft Outlook that when a .pst file reaches 2 gigabytes (which is a lot of information!!!) it become very suseptable to corruption. By backing up once a month, once a week or once a day, you avoid huge .pst files and keep your Outlook manageable. However, it would take most people a year or more to create a .pst file in the range of 2 gigabytes…and that’s even with lots of attachments. Better to be safe by archiving than sorry!

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