Discussion on:

Outlook training: Archiving keeps it neat

No thanks, I'd rather do folders in additional services: I don't archive anything! If I did, I'd have to bring in the archive as another service to keep it online. I often have to answer "what happened here?" on stuff from 6 months ago or longer--with a customer service rep asking on behalf of an irate customer. I much prefer to add services: personal folders, and in separate files (one of the best features of Outlook 95 and up).

What are the tradeoffs between server storage space and maintenance requirements when using archives as opposed to private folders? Yes I do mean server for the private folders since that gets backed up regularly; individual users cannot be counted on to backup even their own archives.

I've got a stack of "completed" folders that I wanted to move out of e-mail to the server. The usual commands of save as, copy, etc. didn't do the trick. I kept seeing the "do you want to archive now" box, but ignored and cancelled it. I just applied this and now can navigate with ease. Thanks for this great article!

There is a facility to move messages off your mail server to your home server and if disk quota is not a restiction , store the same on your home drive and this gets backed up by the backup system. Also added advantage is you will be able to view your .pst files from any workstation you logon without worrying about Security and visibility.

You mentioned that you prefer to create pseronal folders. The archive files is in fact a personal folder (same extension .pst) I have shown many people how to archive, and using auto archive is the best way to clean out your Inbox or other folders.

AutoArchive takes away the work or moving the files in a timely manner.

On beauty of Archiving is that the folder structure of your Mailbox is also replicated in your Archive file.

If you create your personal folders thru Services and add Persoal Folders you are not keeping the messages on line as you say. You are removing the messeges from your Mail B
ox on the Exchange Server and placing them somewhare else. Don't be afraid to archive them they will still be accessible to you in the archive format. They just take up less space.

I don't like the archiving feature either. I prefer the Personal Folder service. It lets me organize saved messages and keeps them off of the server and only affects my hard drive. Archiving causes too much confusion on the user's side. They don't have a clue how to retrieve old appointments, etc.

The statement in this article "If you'd like the items deleted out of your folders once they've been copied to the Archive folder, place a check mark in the Delete Expired Items box. If you don't check this box, you are, to some extent, defeating the purpose of the AutoArchive feature" is incorrect.

"Expired items" means if someone sets an expiration date on the message (under "View, Options, Expires After box" inside of the message) Mail messages will still be removed from your mailbox if the "Delete expired items when AutoArchiving" box is unchecked. Trust me, I've ran auto-archiving on hundreds of people's mailboxes and it has removed the appropriate messages with this box unchecked!

I agree that old emails and appointments etc should be archived to save server space and improve the performance of your PC. I find that I don't archive because it's a real pain to get anything back. You either reimport the whole archive or setup another service. Why can't you search an archive for a particular item? All you need is a 'Search Archive' icon on the toolbar this could be configured to point to your archived file location and bring up a nice search box. This would make a lot of endusers a lot happier archiving.

I have found that Lookout is an extremely productive tool for searching e-mail archives and work files alike. You may find it here: http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html

It can automatically search all pst files, archive files, and work files in any folder you specify. It also displays hits in any attachments filed in the archives.

On top of it all, it is freeware!

The search syntax might have been better, but it is 'bearable'...

It integrates nicely into Outlook, with its own toolbar, and using it is as simple as just typing your search word/phrase and pressing Enter.

Happy searching!

Roald

Past experience with Schedule + gave me the impression that calendar appointments once archived are "lost". I was not able to retrieve/restore a month of appointments to confirm a series of meeting after I archived the calendar. Does this happen with Outlook 98?
In reading the article it appears e-mail is retrievable but I would hate to get it wrong.

I USED to archive. When I went back to find some messages from a year or two ago, I could not find them. It looked like the archive file was being overlaid, not appended to. Is there a switch or something that controls this? I was extremely disappointed that I could not find some archived messages that had become critical.

You do have to change the name of the archive file each time you archive if you do not want to overwrite the existing file. Otherwise, you are simply saving over it.

As far as retrieving archived mail, etc., it is simply a matter of doing a File/Import from a PST file. You can filter which messages, appointments, etc. are filtered in. It is actually more efficient than keeping all of them in folders as you do not have to scroll through/read through hundreds of items.

It seems to me that if you have to change the name of the archive file each time you archive to keep from overwriting the file you will end up with a lot of files to search. For example, if I archive monthly and want a message saved sometime duringthe last three years, I have to import and search (or filter) 36 files. It would be nice to have an append option.

I was curious about archiving, too, so did a test on folders that weren't too important. The first time I asked it to archive files older than May, 2000. Then, I archived files older than September, 2000 to the same file. The information was apended, not overlaid. I use Outlook 2000, so am not sure if this is a new feature of not. But archiving works for me.

I follwed these steps. Still have certian old items left behind.
Any Ideas ?

It's a while since I moved over to Outlook and I don't recall whether or not I was asked if I wanted to enable autoarchiving but if I was I definately wasn't required to configure it in any way.

When the periodic "Do you want to autoarchive" box appeared I thought it sounded a good idea, clicked OK and did so each subsequent time.

It never occurred to me that each time it overwrote the previous archive and consequently I've lost valuable email.

I can't think of another MS application that allows you to permanently delete without checking that you really want to, let alone does it by default.

There should at the very least be a warning that this is going to happen when you first use autoarchive or they should rename the facility "email waiting room of death".

What about searching mail from multiple archive folders?