How To Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size- Easy Ways!

Do you have a full mailbox? Is your system administrator sending you messages on a weekly or even daily basis advising you to decrease the size of your Microsoft Outlook mailbox? This may cause you to waste time clearing out your mailbox.

Outlook mailbox size is the amount stored for a user’s mailbox at the sender or locally in the PST (Personal Storage Table) file. This size limit may vary depending on what is set by your email provider, your organization’s IT policy, or the type of email account you use. Try these tips for a faster, smoother way to make your mailbox smaller and easier to use.

NOTE- Before starting these steps, take a moment to back up the Outlook.pst file which is usually located in the Outlook Files folder in your database. Remove attachments from Multiple Outlook.

Why We Need to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size

Reducing mailbox size in Outlook is important for a few simple reasons:

Faster Outlook: Smaller mailboxes make Outlook open and run faster, allowing you to access emails and folders with less waiting time.

Effortless Email Search: Find specific emails in your Inbox faster and more efficiently. You don’t have to sift through tons of mail to find what you’re looking for. 

Avoid size limit: To avoid problems receiving new e-mails, you should make sure that you do not exceed these limits by reducing the size of your mailbox.

Prevent storage problems: If your mailbox is too large, it may take up too much space on your computer or email server. By controlling the size, you can avoid running out of storage space and encountering problems when sending or receiving emails.

Backup and maintenance: Managing your mailbox regularly keeps your important emails safe and reduces the risk of data loss.

Method 1. Mailbox Cleanup Tool

The best way to reduce Outlook mailbox size is the mailbox cleaner tool. In Outlook, select File > Messages > Cleanup Tools > Mailbox Cleanup.

1. First, select the “View mailbox size” option, which will scan the size of the mailbox and all subfolders. This is a good way to determine which folders have the biggest impact on large mailboxes; so you can clean them first. Just look at the Local Information tab; Any changes you make are also made on the server.
2. Next, select “View older or larger items”; You can remove these items directly from the results to clean up your mailbox in Outlook.
3. Depending on your archiving environment (see Archiving below), you can also perform automatic archiving.
4. Finally, check the size of your Deleted Items folder and empty it if necessary (options explained below). If so, one option is to view and delete multiple items in our mailbox.

Method 2:  Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Using an Expert-Suggested Tool

SysTools PST Compress Tool is an excellent software that can reduce Outlook mailbox size efficiently and accurately. It is the best tool to open PST archives of MS Outlook 2021, 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 and earlier versions.

The software also fixes the “Outlook mailbox is full after deletion” issue by compressing Outlook PST files. The software can easily compress PST files without Outlook.

Some of the Prime Features of the Automated Tool

• Compress PST files by extracting Outlook mailbox attachments. 
• Option to bulk compress large Outlook PST files.
• Provide an option to search PST files from the computer system.
• The software allows you to compress PST files without opening Outlook PST files.
• Option to save the attached file in a specific folder before compressing.
• You can exclude or include any folders during the PST file compression.
• Compress PST file size to a minimum size without data loss.

Steps to Compact the PST File in Outlook

1. First, download and launch the Compression tool.
2. Now click on the “Add File” or “Add Folder” button to add a new PST file.
3. Click Next and you can select the “Delete and delete all” option button if you want to delete the selected files or all files.
4. Compress Attachments: By selecting this option, users can compact the attachments in the ZIP file to compress the PST file.
5. After making the selections you want, select the “Next” button.
6. Once the compression process is over click on the OK button to complete the task.
7. Once the compression process is finished, click the “OK” button to complete the process.

Method 3:  Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Through the Compact Now Feature

• First, open your Outlook inbox and delete unnecessary items.
• Then place the folder list in the navigation pane.
• Then right-click the Deleted Items folder to create an empty folder in the navigation pane.
• Now go to the information tab and select the Account Settings button > Account Settings.
• Then select the account and select the PST file in the file tab > Options > Compress Now.

You can reduce the size of your Outlook mailbox by following the above steps.

4. Archive Older Messages

Another important aspect of maintenance is keeping Outlook folders organized. If you’re accessing Outlook from Exchange, you can’t change the archiving options because archiving is typically controlled by the administrator or a third party.

Set archiving preferences in Info > Cleanup Tools > Archive options. The archive.pst file can be created and edited in any location you specify (usually your local hard drive). Archived items will be removed from your main Outlook mailbox and moved to the archive according to the location you specified. Just like your personal file folder, your archived files cannot be accessed remotely.

5. Empty Deleted Items To  Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size 

To quickly delete emails, simply delete the “Deleted Items” folder when exiting Outlook. To use this option, select File > Options > Advanced tab. From the Outlook startup and logout options, select the Empty Deleted Items folder when exiting Outlook and then click OK to apply.

To manually remove deleted items, find and right-click the Deleted Items folder, then click “Clean Folder” in the context menu. Once a deleted item is removed, it cannot be retrieved. If you are sure you want to delete the message permanently, you can bypass the trash by pressing + Delete on the selected item instead of pressing the delete key. Then confirm the deletion.

Read more: fix Outlook OST not being an Outlook Data File.

6. Save and Remove Attachments

Email attachments take up a lot of space in your Outlook mailbox. Depending on the email communication, one option is to save the attachment and delete it from the original message this will reduce Outlook mailbox size. This requires additional steps, but it helps reduce the size of your Outlook mailbox:

1. First, Open the message.
2. Right-click the attachment and select Save All Attachments. Or select Actions from the Messages tab. Then select Other Projects > Save All Links.
3. Then find and select the folder where you want to save the file and select Save.
4. After saving the attachment, delete the message if you do not need to keep it. If you want to keep the email, you can delete it by right-clicking the attachment in the email and selecting “Delete.”

Conclusion:

We are done here We have gone through many stages and I hope you are well-informed. We have also discussed the best ways to reduce Outlook mailbox size. You can choose any of them to compress your Outlook mailbox data file but I recommend using a professional tool. which is quite convenient and easy to use.