Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Without Deleting It

Summary- Microsoft Outlook may be unable to work correctly if the email client's mailbox storage space surpasses the specified limit. When this happens, you may be unable to send or receive new emails. In that time, it's become important to reduce the size of your Outlook mailbox. In this article, we have discussed numerous approaches to reduce Outlook mailbox size without deleting emails. So, stay with us until the end to learn the approaches to complete the task efficiently. 

Microsoft Outlook is a popular and widely used email service provider. It provides some of the most advanced features and premium plans that are appropriate for both individual users and companies. On a daily basis, users send and receive emails through the Outlook application. The more emails users send and receive, the larger their Outlook mailbox becomes.

Certainly, it is going to have an impact on Outlook's efficiency because larger mailboxes take longer to access or search, and most email services including Outlook 365 limit the size of your mailbox. As a result, as email messages grow in your inbox, the amount of storage space slowly reduces and your mailbox eventually becomes too full. 

Then, an error message shows up: “Mailbox Full: Your mailbox is full; you may not be able to send or receive items.” Therefore, it is important to decrease the size of the MS Outlook mailbox. Here, in this write-up, we are going to discuss how to reduce Outlook mailbox size without deleting emails. But before starting with the write-up let’s understand this situation with a real-time user query. 

User Query

Hi, I’m Rachael, and I'm having a problem with my Outlook. Every time I try to send an email, I get an error message saying "Your mailbox size exceeds the limit." I’m not sure what that means, but it’s really frustrating because I need to send these emails for work. I don't want to delete any of my emails, but I think my mailbox storage might be too full. Is there a way to reduce the size without losing any emails? I'm not very good with this kind of stuff, so any simple steps or guides would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Why Do Users Want to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Without Deleting Emails?

There are various reasons why users desire to decrease the mailbox size, but below we have mentioned some of the common causes why users want to complete this task:

• Large mailboxes can slow down Outlook’s performance, making it take longer to open and search for emails. Reducing the mailbox size can improve overall system responsiveness and efficiency.
• Large mailboxes can increase the risk of data corruption or loss. By decreasing the size of the mailbox, users can reduce this risk and ensure their email data remains safe.
• With a smaller mailbox users can search for specific emails quicker and more efficiently, allowing users to locate important messages more easily.
• Large mailboxes can make backups and recovery more complicated, time-consuming, and complex. Reducing the mailbox size simplifies the backup and recovery process, ensuring data safety and minimizing downtime.
• Reducing the mailbox size without deleting emails helps preserve data integrity, ensuring that important emails and attachments are not lost or corrupted.

How to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Without Deleting Emails Manually?

To send and receive emails without difficulties, the Outlook mailbox must be reduced in size. The simplest method would be to delete some emails and attachments. However, this is not enough to deal with this issue. That is why Microsoft has built-in features in Outlook to cope with the 'Full Mailbox' issue. So, let’s explore the approaches one by one with the steps guide. 

Method 1: Use Outlook Mailbox Cleanup Tool

The Outlook feature Mailbox Cleanup Tool allows you to minimize the size of Outlook PST files. To lower the size of your Outlook mailbox, follow the steps listed below.

1. Launch the Outlook application.
2. Navigate to “Files” then go to “Info” and click “Tools”.
3. Select the “Mailbox Cleanup Tool”.
4. The "View Mailbox Size…" button shows the size of your current mailbox.
5. To reduce the size of the Outlook data file and mailbox, specify the number of days to identify and delete older emails.
6. To reduce the size of the MS Outlook PST file, you can “empty the deleted items folder”, “see the deleted items size”, “view the conflict size”, or “clear the conflicts”.

By doing it, you can lower the mailbox size of Outlook.

Method 2: Using Compact Now Option

This technique is one power pack that is usually used by users to lower the size of Outlook mailboxes. It is both a built-in function in MS Outlook and a powerful and robust technique for reducing mailbox size in Outlook.

1. Go to the “File” tab.
2. Choose “Info” then navigate to “Account Settings” then press “Account Settings” again.
3. Select an account and then the PST files from Data Files. 
4. After that click on the “Settings and press “Compact Now”.

This reduces the size of your PST file.

Method 3: Use Clean-Up Features to Delete Unnecessary Message 

When we discuss a certain topic with someone, we frequently finish up with a long thread of emails. However, multiple messages can contain the same information as previous ones. This is when the Cleanup option comes in helpful. It automatically deletes any unnecessary messages.

However, before deleting the conversation, Cleanup examines each message to ensure that no vital information is lost. For example, if someone sends a message to you and someone else, and you both answer, Cleanup will only save the most recent message.

1. Go to Home, then Delete tab, then click Clean Up.
2. Now, choose any of the options:

• Clean Up the conversation: This examines the existing conversation and deletes unnecessary messages.
• Clean Up Folder: This will assess all of the conversations in the folder and erase all of the unimportant messages.
• Clean Up Folder and SubFolders: This will look at every conversation in the folder and subfolders and remove any irrelevant messages from those chats.

Note: You may also specify which messages are excluded from cleanup and where messages should be moved when removed. 

Method 4: Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size With Archiving Emails Method 

Again, using Outlook, you can archive emails that you don't require regularly. So, if you want to use this method, simply follow the steps listed below.

1. Navigate to the "File" tab then press "Info".
2. Choose Cleanup Tools from the menu.
3. When you select the Archive option, you will see an Archive tab.
4. Choose the Archive this folder and all subfolders options. In addition, you must select the file or folder to be archived.
5. Examine the Archive option for files that you do not want to be included in automated archiving; include things with "Do not Auto Archive" selected.
6. Finally, click OK to finish the entire process.

Drawbacks of the Manual Method 

You can select any of these options as needed. But, keep in mind that manual ways for reducing the size of your Outlook mailbox are a good option. However, it is important to learn that these approaches also come with some limitations which are mentioned below:

• Time-Consuming Process: Manual procedures need a significant amount of time. Even for a non-technical user, understanding and using the approaches takes a significant amount of effort.
• Data Risk: Any minor error while performing any of the manual procedures can cause users to lose all of their data. There is a probability that the user will become confused in between, which might be harmful.

How Do I Reduce the Size of My Outlook Mailbox Using Automated Solution?

If you want to minimize Outlook mailbox size without removing Outlook files, then you can use the Turgs Outlook PST File Splitter. With the help of this software, you can batch-split large Outlook mailbox files into multiple smaller and separate files, which will help you to reduce the mailbox storage space easily and efficiently. Also, this utility provides multiple amazing features and filtration options to split mailboxes selectively as per your requirements.

How to Reduce Outlook Mailbox Size Without Deleting It Easily?

• Step 1: Install and open the automated software. 
• Step 2: Upload your PST files or folders in the utility panel. 
• Step 3: Choose the required mailboxes that you want to split. 
• Step 4: Now, select the saving options as “PST” files. 
• Step 5: Apply filters or split options as per your needs. 
• Step 6: After that, specify the destination location to save the resultant separated files. 
• Step 7: At the end, click the “Convert” button to start the splitting process. 

Some Highlighted Features of the Automated Software

• Provides multiple splitting options to separate files such as by size, folder, date, year, and email address. 
• Allow to add a single or multiple Outlook files or mailboxes.
• Completely standalone utility, even you don’t need to install the MS Outlook application to separate Outlook files. 
• Divide Outlook files by size, from 1 MB to 1 TB.
• The utility completely supports all versions of Microsoft Outlook.

FAQs

Q1. How can I reduce Outlook mailbox size without deleting emails?

Answer: You can reduce your Outlook mailbox size using tools like Mailbox Cleanup, Compact Now, Clean Up Conversations, and Archiving Emails. These methods help manage storage without the need to delete any emails.

Q2. Why should I archive emails in Outlook?

Answer: Archiving moves older or less frequently accessed emails to a separate folder, which reduces the size of your active mailbox. This helps maintain Outlook's performance while keeping all emails accessible.

Q3. What happens if I don't reduce the size of my Outlook mailbox?

Answer: If the mailbox size exceeds the limit, Outlook may become slow or unresponsive. You may encounter errors such as "Mailbox Full" and be unable to send or receive new emails. Over time, a full mailbox can also increase the risk of data corruption.

Q4. What is an automated way to reduce mailbox size?

Answer: With the help of above mentioned software you can easily reduce mailbox size by splitting large PST files into smaller ones. This method is efficient and minimizes the risk of data loss.

Conclusion 

In this write-up, we have discussed how to reduce Outlook mailbox size without deleting emails. Here, we have explained multiple manual approaches to complete this task. However, as we can see the manual methods are easy but there are some limitations like data loss risks and time-consuming processes. Therefore, to securely and efficiently reduce Outlook mailbox size we have mentioned an expert-recommended automated software. Furthermore, the professional solution provides a free demo version of the software to users to test the features and capabilities of the toolkit.