Archive older items automatically - Microsoft Support (2024)

FAQs

Archive older items automatically - Microsoft Support? ›

Click File > Options > Advanced. Under AutoArchive, click AutoArchive Settings. Click the Run AutoArchive every n days box and specify how often to run AutoArchive.

The AutoArchive feature runs automatically whenever you start Outlook. Outlook checks the AutoArchive properties of each folder by date and moves old items to your archive file. Items that are moved to the Deleted Items folder are deleted.

To mass archive emails in Outlook, select all messages you wish to remove from Inbox, then click the Archive button. This might require selecting all emails in a folder or using a search filter to select multiple emails across folders.

Archiving your emails sends them all to the same place: your archive. An archived email is removed from your inbox and saved in a separate folder entirely. This way, it's out of your way but not deleted, so you can get to it at a later date as needed.

To turn off the AutoArchive feature, clear the Run AutoArchive every n days check box. Prompt before AutoArchive runs Choose whether you want a reminder message to appear before AutoArchive processes your Outlook items. When prompts appear, you can click No on the reminder message to cancel that AutoArchive session.

It is possible that the archive mailbox is enabled for the shared mailbox and the retention policy is moving the emails to the archive mailbox. Once you enable archive, based on the retention policy that's assigned to the mailbox, items are moved to the shared mailbox's archive mailbox.

Archive policies can range from Personal 1 year move to archive (1 year) to Personal 5 year move to archive (5 year). You can also choose Personal never move to archive (Never). Note: Your organization controls the policies that are available for your use.

Does archiving in Outlook delete old emails? ›

Your Archive folder is never automatically emptied. Any email you see in either the trash or archive folder can be moved back to your inbox folder.

The archiving feature (called auto-expanding archiving) provides more storage space in archive mailboxes, up to a maximum of 1.5 TB. Each Exchange Online Archiving subscriber initially receives 100 GB of storage in the archive mailbox.

Yes, the Archive folder does not free up space.

It is best to archive all of your emails to ensure a comprehensive record of communication and keep your organization compliant.

Email archiving is the process of securely storing emails, making it easy to search for and retrieve them. It's a fast, reliable, and scalable solution to storing essential emails while reducing the load on mail servers. It helps store old emails that you don't need immediate access to, but don't want to delete.

Archive policies can range from Personal 1 year move to archive (1 year) to Personal 5 year move to archive (5 year). You can also choose Personal never move to archive (Never). Note: Your organization controls the policies that are available for your use.

Archive and AutoArchive options are not available in Outlook. Most likely, you are using the Exchange Server mailbox, or your organization has a mail retention policy that overrides Outlook AutoArchive, e.g. it was disabled by your administrator as a Group Policy.