Outlook 2010 Auto Archiving issues

Topic

New Reply

I have gone through what I think from numerous tutorials is the correct method of auto archiving. I have found the archive.pst folder in its appropriate position and it is only showing about 150m of data. My Outlook.pst is showing 4.5gb of data.
I notice that all the folders in my in box still contain all the entries from in some cases years back. I was under the impression that when archiving is done these folders should be cleaned up and the older stuff goes to the archive.pst.
When I set up the auto archiving I pretty well left everything at default.
If I open the archive folder from within Outlook and click on the Inbox properties it shows that there is nothing in any of the subfolders.

Obviously something is amiss, I just cannot locate what it is. Any help very much appreciated

Reply | Quote

Replies

Have you also set AutoArchive properties for each folder?

The AutoArchive feature has a two-step process.
First, you turn on the AutoArchive feature.
Second, you set the properties for the AutoArchive feature for each folder that you want archived.
Description of the AutoArchive feature in Outlook

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

Reply | Quote

Thanks Bruce, I have the settings the same for all folders.

Reply | Quote

Thanks Bruce, I have the settings the same for all folders.

Because you visited each individual folder and set autoarchive? How many folders do you have?

You can manually run autoarchive; Cleaning Up your Mailbox – Microsoft Outlook 2010

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

Reply | Quote

Bruce. The inbox has around 20 subfolders under it. Then there is sent, draft, deleted junk etc. all the default folders.

Reply | Quote

Why rely on Auto-archiving at all? I prefer to archive when I decide. I archive when I decide to and do it manually. I want to make sure no relevant messages are archived unless I really want to.
I also don’t want to have a single archiving folder. I keep my archived messages organized by year, with one archive file year. Like that I can decided which messages to keep accessible even through search and I can open older archives if I want to access something I know is not online, based on date.

4.5 GB is a lot more than I would allow on a .pst file. Even if newer .pst versions are said to be more reliable, I just don’t trust a file that big to remain safe.

Reply | Quote

Yeah, I hear you, but there is a lot of stuff that I do not want to lose, some of it is years old. From now on I will almost certainly do this on a regular basis. Having said that, the archiving is not working at all. For some reason the archive file is way smaller than it should be considering the amount of stuff that needs to be cleaned out of the outlook folders. I would have expected there would be at least 80% of the stuff removed, but nothing is happening. All my folders still show messages etc that are in some cases 5 years old. If the process had worked as I understand it should, my outlook folders should have been cleaned out and the detritus placed in the archive. Not happening. I am only producing a very small archive folder. When I open it in outlook, it shows up as empty even though as an archive.pst it shows 150meg.. got me whacked I must admit.

Reply | Quote

Yeah, I hear you, but there is a lot of stuff that I do not want to lose, some of it is years old. From now on I will almost certainly do this on a regular basis. Having said that, the archiving is not working at all. For some reason the archive file is way smaller than it should be considering the amount of stuff that needs to be cleaned out of the outlook folders. I would have expected there would be at least 80% of the stuff removed, but nothing is happening. All my folders still show messages etc that are in some cases 5 years old. If the process had worked as I understand it should, my outlook folders should have been cleaned out and the detritus placed in the archive. Not happening. I am only producing a very small archive folder. When I open it in outlook, it shows up as empty even though as an archive.pst it shows 150meg.. got me whacked I must admit.

Have you tried to manually archive one of your folders, just as a test? You should backup your .pst file regularly, so I recommend that if you try manual archiving, copy your pst file somewhere else before starting.

Reply | Quote

Have you tried to manually archive one of your folders, just as a test? You should backup your .pst file regularly, so I recommend that if you try manual archiving, copy your pst file somewhere else before starting.

Tried that and archive created in default area, showing 20 megs. When I try to open in outlook the folder is there but empty. :huh:

Reply | Quote

Got the hit the sack as it is nearly 2am here, thanks for ideas, will log in again later today..

Reply | Quote

Looks like I have found the problem, had to add a registry string as per: http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/archivenotworking.htm

Reply | Quote