Outlook Won't Archive

I think I could solve this for you because I have dealt with the same problem more than 20 times for my users, but I need to know more about your setting in order to give you an answer.

When you right click on the folder and go into "AutoArchive", what is the time period you have after "Clean out items older than.." ??

At present the clean out date is set to 2 Months, but it's not just on auto archive, the process fails if you manually run the archive and override the settings to do everything from a specific date

As a temporary measure However i have been able to export data from Outlook to a PST file using a filter.
But this is only a quick fix, and require a fuller solution.

jdlp,

Thanks for your info, here is my answer for you, I believe the combination of two explanations will solve your question.

1. The time period is not base on the time a message was received, but base on the last time you did anything with the message, including moving, copying and viewing it.

For example you have message sent 3 month ago but the last time you viewed it was 30 days ago, then this message is considered "30 days old", not "3 month old", when you archive messages older than 2 month, this message will *NOT* be archived because Outlook doesn't take is as older than 2 months.

2. Under Outlook 2000, the AutoArchive setting is *NOT* applied to subfolders, so if you have set it on your Inbox only but you have subfolders underneath it, you need to do the same setting to *EACH OF THEM*.

When you go into Tools -> Options -> Other -> AutoArchive, is the box checked to run every X number of days?

Can you confirm thta the manual process that works is going to the same archive PST? if not is the archive PST corrupt? also if you set up another PC will it archice OK for this user on that machine?

OK have you checked that the anti-virus software or a brick level backup has not altered the date of access and hence keeps renewing the date and never reaches over a day old for example (backup/AV run every day or week)?

Just my 2cents, most of the time that I encounter problems with archiving or export\import of pst in outlook is caused by an Antivirus software. The one that i have experienced with was a NAVMSE(norton av for microsoft exchange). If you have enabled VAPI mode(scanning incoming and outgoing mails). it might gives you problems with archiving. if you are running the new Symantec Antivirus for Microsoft Exchange. It wouldn't give you that problem because it has a different antivirus engine. Try stopping the norton antivirus for microsoft exchange and do archiving. See if it helps.

Steffen

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