- Archive old information. Data files can quickly grow to gigabytes in size. Over time, a large data file can become unwieldy, causing Outlook to be slower to start up and shut down. You might want to archive old messages and items into a separate file that you can access as needed. To archive files, click File and then click the Tools button. Click Clean Up Old Items. Select which folder(s) to archive, and then set a date threshold in the Archive Items Older Than box. Choose an archive file location, or accept the default (which is the same location as your main Outlook data file, but named Archive).
- Clean up your mailbox. Mailbox Cleanup is more advanced and involved than a simple archive operation. With Mailbox Cleanup you can find items that are older than a certain number of days or larger than a certain number of kilobytes. You can use AutoArchive to automate the archive process, and you can empty the Deleted Items folder. To get started, click File, click Tools, and click Mailbox Cleanup.
- Share Outlook with other users. When you share a computer and each person has his or her own Windows sign-in, you don’t have to worry about Outlook crossover; when each of you runs Outlook, you get your own private mailbox and data file. But if two or more people share the same sign-in, they don’t necessarily have to share a single Outlook data set. The key to privacy in this case is to create additional profiles in Outlook. Click File, click Account Settings, and click Manage Profiles. Create a new profile in the Mail dialog box by clicking Add and filling in the requested information. Then in the Mail dialog box you can choose Prompt for a Profile to Be Used if you want Outlook to ask which user to load each time it opens. Alternatively, you can choose Always Use This Profile and then select the one to use. To switch profiles if you haven’t asked Outlook to prompt you at startup, choose File, Account Settings, Change Profile. Outlook will restart and ask which profile to load.
