6/21/23, 2:51 PM Archiving Outlook Emails | A Step-by-Step Guide - IONOS

Archiving Emails with Outlook – Here's How it Works

Maintain an overview – even in your emails! Do you manage your email folders, calendars, and contacts with Microsoft
Outlook? Then use Outlook archiving to archive old Outlook items such as messages, tasks, notes, or calendar entries
in external archive files. This streamlines your email program – which is essential to keep Outlook running smoothly.

The program has two functions for archiving Outlook items:

Outlook AutoArchive
Manual archiving Outlook items

We’ll show you how this works in our step-by-step guide with helpful screenshots.

Contents
What are Archived Outlook Files?
Outlook AutoArchive
Manually Archiving Outlook Folders

What are Archived Outlook Files?

Archived Outlook files are messages, drafts, tasks, notes, or calendar information that have passed a freely chosen aging
period; they are moved from the email program to an external PST file (short for: Personal Store).

Tip
The PST files stored on your local hard disk can be opened at any time with your email program, if required, to display
archived Outlook items.

Outlook AutoArchive
As an alternative to manually configuring Outlook archive settings, you can use the AutoArchive feature of the email program.

AutoArchive is enabled by default for some Outlook folders. Outlook items that exceed the predefined age are automatically
moved to a PST file. Outlook’s default setting creates the PST file at the following location:

C:\Users\ \AppData\Local\MicrosoftOutlook

The following table shows all folders where Outlook AutoArchive is usually activated automatically, as well as the
respective standard aging period.

Inbox and Drafts 6 months

Outbox 3 months
Calendar 6 months
Tasks 6 months
Journal 6 months
Sent items 2 months
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Inbox and Drafts 6 months

Deleted items 2 months

Notes 6 months

If you don’t want to use AutoArchive, take the following steps to disable the feature:

Step 1: Open Outlook and go to the “File” tab.

Step 2: In the left sidebar, select the menu item “Options”. Outlook Options opens in a new window.

Microsoft Outlook 2016: In the "File" tab, you’ll find your account information and the Outlook settings.

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Step 3: Navigate to the “Advanced” section and under AutoArchive, click the “AutoArchive Settings” button.

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Outlook Options

Outlook opens the “AutoArchive” window.

Step 4: Disable the “Run AutoArchive every x days” option to disable Outlook AutoArchive.

The default setting for Outlook AutoArchive is every 14 days.

Alternatively, you can customize the default settings for Outlook AutoArchive to your individual preferences.

Define the interval at which AutoArchive should be performed.

Adjust the default period for Outlook items.
Determine whether old Outlook items are archived or permanently deleted after the aging period.

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Manually Archiving Outlook Folders

If you want to selectively archive specific folders in your mailbox, it’s recommended that you select them manually and save
them as a PST file to a storage location of your choice.

The following steps show you how to manually archive emails and other Outlook items:

Step 1: Open Outlook and go to the “File” tab.

Step 2: In the left sidebar, select the menu item “Info”.

You already usually see the “Account Information” section when you access the “File” tab.

Step 3: Click on the “Cleanup Tools” button and select “Archive” from the drop-down menu.

Microsoft gives you a choice of three options to free up space in your Outlook mailbox: you can clean up the mailbox, empty the
“Deleted Items” folder, or archive old Outlook items.

Outlook opens the “Archive” window.

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Note
If you use Microsoft in combination with an Exchange server and your organization uses the online archive for Microsoft
Exchange, the “Archive” feature may not be available to you in your Outlook desktop app. The same applies if the
feature has been disabled by your Exchange server’s administrator.

Step 4: Choose one of two options:

Archive all folders according to your AutoArchive settings

Archive a selected folder and all its subfolders

Manual archiving is useful, for example, if you want to selectively archive a folder to free up space.

Step 5: Enter a date next to “Archive items older than”. Any Outlook items that you have created, sent, or received before this
date will be archived.

By default, Outlook stores PST files in the “Outlook Files” folder under “Documents”. If necessary, amend the storage directory
by clicking the “Browse...” button.

If you also wish to include elements in the archive for which the option “No AutoArchive” is activated, place a checkmark in the
corresponding box.

Step 6: Complete the configuration by clicking on “OK”.

Note

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Manual Outlook archiving will only be performed once with the settings you have entered. If you would like to archive
selected folders regularly, we recommend that you configure Outlook AutoArchive accordingly.

09/23/2019Technical matters

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