How to Shrink the Size of Your Microsoft Outlook Mail File

How to Shrink the Size of Your Microsoft Outlook Mail File

You should take steps to reduce the size your Outlook mail file if it’s ballooned too large.

Do you use Microsoft Outlook and find that your mail file, aka the PST file, keeps getting larger and larger? Yep, that happens as you accumulate more and more email. With lots of mail, your PST file can easily grow to become many gigabytes in size. And why is that a problem? A larger PST file can slow down Outlook. PST files can also become corrupted, a potentiality that increases if the file grows too big. Fortunately, there are ways you can reduce the size of your PST file.

Microsoft Outlook uses a PST (personal storage table) file to store not just your email but also your calendar events, tasks, and other items. The PST file is a convenient way to house such information as you can move the file to a different drive or computer, back it up as one single entity, and export items from one PST file to another. The major drawback with a PST file is that the file can easily get very large very fast, especially if you have a habit of not deleting your incoming messages. Overtime, you may be surprised how big the file has grown, especially if you have a lot of messages with huge file attachments.

How large can the PST file get? In Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003, the size limit for your PST file was 20 gigabytes. For Outlook 2010, 2013, and 2016, that limit was bumped to 50GB. But before you even reach those limits, a big PST file can affect the performance of Outlook and increase the risk of file corruption. So, it’s in your best interests to try to keep the file size small and manageable. For this article, I’m using Outlook 2016 but the steps apply to the past few previous versions of Outlook as well.

How can you determine the size of your PST file? In Outlook, click on the File tab. Under Account Information, click on the button for Account Settings and from the menu, click on the entry for Account Settings. In the Account Settings window, make sure your PST file is selected and then note the location of the data file, or click on the Data Files tab to see the location. Open File Explorer or Windows Explorer and navigate to the location of your PST file. In the Explorer window, you can then see the size of the file.

Alternatively, you can use the Mailbox Cleanup tool. Click on the File tab and then click on the Tools button next to Mailbox Settings. From the menu, click on the entry for Mailbox Cleanup. At the Mailbox Cleanup window, click on the button to View Mailbox Size. Outlook shows you the total size of your PST file as well as the size of each folder.

What you can you do to shrink your PST file size?

First, click on your Deleted Items folder to see if there are any messages, especially large ones, that you want to remove. You may find lots of messages if your settings are configured to not empty the Deleted Items folder when existing Outlook. To make sure Outlook dumps these messages each time you close the program, click on the File tab and then click on Options. At the Outlook Options window, click on Advanced. Click on the checkmark for “Empty the Deleted Items folders when existing Outlook,” if it’s not enabled. Click OK.

Next, you may have to go through the arduous task of scouring through each of your mail folders to look for messages you can delete. One place to start is the Sent Items folder. Scroll back in time to your oldest sent messages, and you’ll likely discover many that you no longer need. You may find it helpful to change the order in which the messages appear. Click on the All button, and from the resulting menu, hover to the Arrange By command. Now you can sort your messages by such attributes as size or attachments.

You can also get help from Outlook’s Mailbox Cleanup tool. Click on the File tab and then click on the Tools button next to Mailbox Settings. From the menu, click on the entry for Mailbox Cleanup. At the Mailbox Cleanup window, click on the option to “Find items older than” and select a number of days, or click on the option to “Find items larger than” and select a specific size. Click Find, and Outlook serves up a list of messages that match your criteria. From the Advanced Find window, you can also narrow the search by looking for certain keywords in your messages, selecting a specific sender or receiver, and choosing other options.

Okay, you’ve deleted a bunch of older messages. Make sure to empty the Deleted Items folder. Now, the file needs to be compacted to free up the empty space. Outlook should automatically compact the file in the background after a certain period of inactivity. But if you want to force the issue, you can compact the file yourself. To do that, click on the File tab. Under Account Information, click on the button for Account Settings and from the menu, click on the entry for Account Settings. In the Account Settings window, click on the Data Files tab and select your PST File. Click on Settings. In the Settings window, click on Compact Now. Wait for the file to be compacted.

Click OK and then click Close. Now check the size of your PST file to see if it’s shrunk and by how much. Still want to reduce the size of the file? Then it may be time to archive your older messages, thereby creating a separate file to house them. By placing older messages in an archive file, they’re removed from your current Outlook folders but still available in the archive should you ever need to see them.

To automatically send older messages to an archive file, click on the File tab and then select Options. Click on the Advanced category. Under AutoArchive, click on AutoArchive Settings. Click on the checkmark to Run AutoArchive if it’s not already checked. Select how often AutoArchive should run by specifying the number of days. Set any other options you wish to enable, such as the age in months of messages that should be archived. When done, click OK to set up the auto archive and close the window.

You can also manually archive a message. Right-click on the message you wish to archive and select Archive from the popup menu. If an archive file doesn’t exist, Outlook asks if you want the program to create an archive folder or use an existing folder. Select the option to Create archive folder. Outlook creates a folder called Archives and moves your selected message to it. You can now select messages, click on the Archive command, and those messages are moved to the Archives folder.

How to Manage Your Fonts in Windows

Yes, you can add, remove, and maintain your Windows fonts.

Click on the font menu in one of your Office applications or another Windows program, and you’ll likely see a cavalcade of fonts, most of which you probably will never use. Other times, you may need a specific font only to discover that it’s not on your system. Whatever your beef with the fonts in Windows, you can get a better handle on them. Managing your fonts is accomplished through the Windows Fonts screen accessible from Control Panel. There, you can view and preview your existing fonts, remove fonts you don’t want to use or see, and view new fonts that you can find online and install in Windows. Let’s look at how to manage and use your fonts in Windows.

Windows comes with several fonts already built into the operating system. Certain applications also add more fonts to your collection. Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and other products come packed with their own fonts. Most fonts come in families that include assorted styles. So, for example, an Arial font will be available in regular, black, bold, italic, and bold italic. Viewing, adding, removing, and managing your fonts involves the same steps whether you’re running Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 7.

Okay, let’s look at the fonts you have on your system. Open Control Panel in icon view and then click on the icon for Fonts. The number and types of fonts you see vary based on your version of Windows and any applications you’ve installed that added their own fonts.

Double-click on a particular font. If the font is a family, you’ll see all the individual styles. If the font is not a family, then you’ll see a preview of the font in different point sizes. For a font family, double-click on one of the individual styles to preview it. You can print the font preview if you need a paper copy displaying the various sizes.

Close the preview window and return to the list of all fonts. Let’s say there’s a particular font or fonts that you never use and can’t imagine ever using. How do you put the kibosh on such a font? You have two options. You can either delete the font or simply hide it. Deleting a font removes it from Windows entirely. Hiding a font keeps it on your system and removes it from the font list but only in certain Windows apps. Let’s look at both options.

First off, there are many fonts you can’t delete, notably fonts built into Windows. If you try to remove such a font, Windows will stop you in your tracks by saying the font cannot be deleted because it is a protected system font. So, you’re generally limited to deleting fonts added by Office and other applications. Right-click on the font you want to delete. From the popup menu, click on the Delete command. If the font is not a protected system font, then it will vanish.

You can continue deleting non-system fonts this way to remove the fonts you don’t want to see or use. What if you change your mind and want to restore a deleted font? Fonts that you delete through the Fonts screen don’t go into the Recycle Bin, so you can’t recover them using that method. At the Fonts screen, you can click on the link for Font settings and then click on the button to Restore default font settings. But that won’t necessarily bring back the font you deleted. A more effective option may be to run a repair of the application that installed the font. You can try running a repair of Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, or other another application that likely added the font in the first place.

An easier and safer approach is simply to hide a font, though this maneuver doesn’t work across the board. To do so, right-click on the font and click on Hide from the popup menu.

The font still appears in the Fonts screen but its icon takes on a dimmer appearance. Unfortunately, hiding a font this way doesn’t make it disappear in all applications. Certain built-in apps such as WordPad and Notepad tap directly into Windows for their font menus. So, hiding fonts through the Fonts screen hides them in those apps. But applications such as Microsoft Office use their own font menus. So, hiding the fonts through the Fonts screen has no effect on them.

Here’s another trick that may prove more effective. You can copy a font to a different spot and then delete the original. To do this, create a folder called Backup Fonts or Deleted Fonts. Right-click on the font and click on Copy from the popup menu. Then paste that font into your new folder. You can now delete the font from the Fonts screen, but you still have the backup in case you ever want to restore it.

Okay, now let’s say you want to add fonts to Windows. Perhaps you need a specific font for a document or other project you’re creating. Where can you find fonts? Several websites offer fonts for downloading. Some charge for fonts; others offer fonts freely. You’ll find True Type fonts (TTF), which has been the Windows standard for many versions, as well as Open Type fonts (OTF), which came after True Type fonts. The two types of fonts offer various features for graphic and web designers. But the average Windows user won’t see any difference between the two. Let’s check out a few sites where you can find fonts.

Fontspace is one site that serves up fonts for free. You can browse the site’s fonts by style and other criteria. You can also search for a specific font. If you find a font you like or need, click on its Download button. Extract the downloaded zip file to see images of the font and the True Type font. Fontsgeek is another site that provides free fonts. Here, you can also browse fonts by different criteria, such as top-rated fonts and recently-added fonts, and search for fonts by name. Download the zip file for the font you want and extract its contents to see Open Type font. One more site is Fontsup. You can track down fonts by category or by name and download the font you want.

Another option is to search for the name of the font in Google or Bing. For example, I needed a font called Copperplate Gothic 31 Ab for a client project. I was able to find it at Fontsgeek by searching for the name followed by the word font as in “Copperplate Gothic 31 Ab font.”

Okay, now you’ve got your True Type or Open Type font. How do you install it? Simple. Just right-click on the font file. From the popup menu, click on the Install command.

You’ll see a message that the font is being installed. Now, open the Fonts screen from Control Panel and look for your new font. You should see it nestled safely with all the rest.

To learn more about fonts in Windows, check out Microsoft’s Typography website.