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10 Minute Guide to Outlook 97

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Archiving Items

In this lesson, you learn to use AutoArchive and to archive files, retrieve archived files, and delete archived files.

Using AutoArchive

You can set an option in Outlook to automatically archive your mail messages into files periodically. The AutoArchive feature cleans your Inbox for you without deleting any messages.

Plain English: Archive To save items to a file that can be opened at any time and printed, viewed, or otherwise used. You might, for example, want to archive some of your mail messages to keep for your records instead of leaving those messages in your Inbox. Archived items are removed from the folder and copied to an archive file.

To use AutoArchive, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools, Options. The Options dialog box appears.

2. Click the AutoArchive tab.

3. Click the AutoArchive Every xx check box to display the rest of the items in the dialog box (see Figure 22.1).

4. Choose from the following options:

AutoArchive Every x Days at Startup Enter a number for how often (in days) you want Outlook to automatically archive items. If you enter 14, for example, when you start Outlook on the 14th day, it automatically archives the contents of your folders into an archive file.

Prompt Before AutoArchive If you check this, Outlook displays a dialog box each time it is about to perform the AutoArchive; you can click OK or Cancel to continue or stop the operation.

Delete Expired Items When AutoArchiving (E-Mail Folders Only) Check this box to have Outlook delete messages from the Inbox after archiving them.



Figure 22.1
Specify options for automatically archiving items into files.

5. In the Default Archive File text box, enter a path to where you want to save the file, and name it (if you don't want to use the default).

6. Click OK to close the dialog box.

In addition to setting the AutoArchive options in the Options dialog box, each folder--Inbox, Tasks, Calendar, and so on--has additional AutoArchive options you can set.

To set individual folder's AutoArchive options, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the folder in the Outlook Bar to display the shortcut menu.

2. Choose Properties. The item's Properties dialog box appears.

3. Choose the AutoArchive tab. Figure 22.2 shows the Inbox's AutoArchive tab.



Figure 22.2
Set AutoArchive options for individual folders.

4. Set the options you want in the dialog box. You can change the length of time you want the archived files to be saved before they're deleted or saved to another file, and you can enter a path and file name for the second save.

5. Click OK to close the dialog box.

Archiving Manually

You can choose to archive one or two folders or all folders manually whenever you're ready to create an archive file. If you choose to do it yourself, you control exactly how and when archives are created.

To create an archive, follow these steps:

1. Choose File, Archive. The Archive dialog box appears (see Figure 22.3).



Figure 22.3
Enter settings for manual archiving.

2. Choose one of the following options:

Archive All Folders According to Their AutoArchive Settings Use this option to save archives of each folder using the settings you select in the AutoArchive tab of the folder's Properties dialog box.

Archive This Folder and All Subfolders Select this option to archive the selected folder.

3. Enter a date in the Archive Items Older Than text box, or select a date from the drop-down calendar.

4. In the Archive File text box, enter a path and file name with which to save the file.

5. Click OK to archive the selected folder(s).

Retrieving Archived Files

You can retrieve an archived file by importing it to the original file. When you retrieve an archived file, it becomes a part of your Outlook folder just as it was before you archived it.

Follow these steps to retrieve an archived file:

1. Choose File, Import and Export. The Import and Export Wizard dialog box appears.

2. Choose Import from a Personal Folders File (*PST) and click the Next button.

3. In the second wizard dialog box, enter the path and the file name of the archived file.

4. Select any one of the following options, and then click the Next button:

Replace Duplicates with Items Imported to overwrite any copies of the data with imported items.

Allow Duplicates to Be Created to create duplicates of the items instead of overwriting them.

Do Not Import Duplicates to preserve the originals in the folder instead of overwriting them with items from the archived file.

5. In the third wizard dialog box, choose the folder into which you want to import. (The default is to import the archived item to the Personal Folders area; you may have created subfolders into which you want to import.)

6. Click the Finish button, and Outlook imports the archived files.

Deleting Archived Files

The easiest way to delete archived files is by using the Windows Explorer. However, you can also delete files from the Find Files and Folders dialog box or from My Computer (both Windows applications).

To delete an archived file, follow these steps:

1. Open the Explorer and locate the files. Archived files are saved with a .PST extension in the My Documents folder (by default) or any other folder you designate.

2. Open the folder containing the files and select the file(s) you want to delete.

3. Press the Delete key, or drag the file(s) to the Recycle Bin.

4. Empty the Recycle Bin by right-clicking the Bin icon and choosing Empty Recycle Bin.

5. Close the Explorer by clicking the Close (X) button.

In this lesson, you learned to use AutoArchive and to archive files, retrieve archived files, and delete archived files. In the next lesson, you will learn to customize Outlook.

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