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Reduce your Outlook email and calendar storage size

Reduce your Outlook email and calendar storage size

Reduce Your Outlook Email And Calendar Storage Size

First check your current Mailbox size:

How to check your Exchange Online storage in Outlook on the web?

Office 365, Email, Exchange, How to check quota (uillinois.edu)

What are your Mailbox and Calendar size limits in Outlook on the web?

Office 365, Email, Exchange, What are my Mailbox Size Limits? (uillinois.edu)

Mailboxes for Users on the Exchange system have a hard limit of 100GB

Current Warnings:

  • 98GB: Warning regarding Inbox Size
  • 99GB: Unable to Send Email
  • 100GB: Unable to Send and Receive Email

Users may also experience performance issues when exceeding the following thresholds:

Total Mailbox Items: 250,000
Total Calendar Items: 5,000

Large numbers of recurring meetings, or long-lived recurring meetings can also have an adverse effect on performance.

**In the Windows Outlook desktop client, the item count in each Mailbox folder will show at the bottom left corner.**


There are several ways to reduce your mailbox size. You can make an offline backup as you prepare to delete emails.

Please note regarding backing up email, that you will need to keep track of the backup file or you will lose your backup archived information. You are responsible for storing and maintaining the backup file. In addition, you are responsible for importing that backed-up data into your mailbox if needed later. Anything that gets moved or deleted is due to your actions and no automated systems are in place to manage that data for you.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/back-up-your-email-e5845b0b-1aeb-424f-924c-aa1c33b18833

Export items to an archive file in Outlook for Mac - Microsoft Support

After making this backup file, you can delete the specified items from your inbox and then delete the items from the Recovery folder to complete the process of saving space.


To also save space, you can delete old items that are no longer wanted. Further examples of how to do this are below.

Please note that you remain solely responsible for emails or mailbox items that are deleted and permanently removed. Emptying the Deleted items folder puts the emails into the Recovery folder. Then you must also empty the Recovery folder to save space. At this point, you will not be able to recover items deleted from the Recovery folder. Please verify that you do not want the deleted email before you remove it, because these mailbox items once deleted and emptied from your recovery folder cannot be recovered and are permanently deleted.


How to clean up your Mailbox via Outlook on the web:

Clean up Mailbox in Outlook on the web

Mailbox storage in OWA

Other ways to reduce your storage with Outlook on the web:

Organize your inbox with Archive, Sweep, and other tools in Outlook on the web - Microsoft Support


How to clean up your Mailbox via the Windows Outlook desktop client:

How to reduce your Mailbox by size

You can use the Mailbox Cleanup tool to view the size of your mailbox and individual folders. This tool can also help you search for older or very large messages that you might want to delete.

Often, the cause of a large mailbox is a large Deleted Items folder. The tool provides a button to view the size of your Deleted Items folder and empty your Deleted Items folder.

Run the Mailbox Cleanup tool

Click the File tab > click Tools > Mailbox Cleanup

Then select View Mailbox SizeFind items older thanFind items larger thanView Deleted Items SizeEmpty Deleted Items folder to perform your desired task

Search for large messages

For example in the Search box, type: messagesize: > 5mb, at this point, you can delete some or all of these messages.

How to reduce your Calendar by size

Click the Calendar icon > click View tab > click Change View > click List

Now click the View tab > Current View > View Settings > click Columns button

  1. Next set the “Select available columns from:” to “All Appointment fields”
  2. In the left column select: Size.
  3. Press the “Add ->” button.

Showing Size column in calendar list view

Click OK to return to your calendar.

Click the added “Size” column to sort by size.

At this point, you can analyze the large items and clean up as needed. Right click on an item to delete it.

Once you are done reviewing the Calendar items, you can switch back to the Day/Week/Month view: click View tab -> click Change View-> Calendar

Another way to reduce your Calendar size:

Click the Calendar icon > click View tab > click Change View > click List

Select "View" from the top menu bar, click "Arrange by" and choose "Start Date." At this point, you can clean up as needed.  Make sure to check the ending date before deleting any recurring appointments. Deleting one instance of a recurring event will also remove all future appointments related to that event.


How to clean up your Mailbox via Outlook for Mac:

Clean up old email on Outlook for Mac - Microsoft Community



Keywordsreduce your Outlook email and calendar storage size   Doc ID127457
OwnerOffice 3.GroupUniversity of Illinois Technology Services
Created2023-04-25 10:29:56Updated2024-01-10 11:28:34
SitesUniversity of Illinois Technology Services
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