So, you are stuck in the old ways of Outlook, and you feel the need to Auto-Archive your emails when you think that your storage is being all user up. What if I could show you how to Stop Auto-Archiving Outlook.
If you are using Outlook through an M365 subscription you have a minimum of 50GB Storage for your email. Depending on your license you could have up to 100 GB storage. I don’t know about you but that is a lot.
Back in the day 2-10 GB storage was considered a lot, so you would have to use Auto Archive a lot. I would try not to use it at all if you can. It really is a pain as it creates another storage location for your mail, and I like to keep it all in one place.
How to Stop Auto-Archiving Outlook
Go to the control panel and search for mail:
When you click mail, go to your account settings:
Double click your account, it will take you to your cache settings:
In this example I am keeping 3 years of mail cached. Anything older will be in the cloud, accessible by going to https://outlook.office.com/mail/ . This will reduce the size of the mail being stored on your computer.
Benefits of Not Auto-Archiving Outlook
The benefits are twofold:
- It reduces the storage space on your computer. This is helpful if you are using a device with limited storage space (Surface Tablet or any computer with a smaller hard disk)
- You only have one storage location for all your mail. If you need to retrieve mail from outside your cached timeframe all you must do is go to the cloud.
What you can see here is that users forget that Outlook is always updating and Auto-Archive is an ooutdated concept. Storage is no longer the precious commodity it once was!
Dan
I am an IT professional with over twenty years experience in the field. I have supported thousands of users over the years. The organizations I have worked for range in size from one person to hundreds of people. I have performed support from Help Desk, Network / Cloud Administration, Network Support, Application Support, Implementation and Security.