Hugo D. As a communication and business productivity tool, there is no doubt that Microsoft Outlook does an outstanding job. With more than 400 million users, it is the first choice of businesses and organizations for a stable and robust desktop email client.
However, while it has several features that make it indispensable for workplaces, it is also an extremely complicated package. Due to this and several other reasons, Outlook tends to become progressively slower, especially when it needs to handle a large volume of emails.
A slow-running Outlook can be frustrating to users and is also prone to crashing, making your emails inaccessible. Some tips to speed up Outlook for better work efficiency:
Update Outlook
The first thing you should try if you notice the speed of Outlook degrading is to check for an update. In addition to new features, updates generally offer more streamlined code, security patches, fix leaks in the memory, and more.
You should go online and find out if you are using the latest version and update if you are not. More importantly, check if the version installed on your device is licensed. Unlicensed versions can behave unpredictably while being illegal to use.
Clean up Outlook
The more the number of files you have in your inbox, sent box, storage folders, and archives, the slower Outlook is likely to run. It can be a good idea to go through all your data and delete whatever you do not need. Generally, you can delete anything you have not looked at for about a year or so. You will be surprised to discover how much junk you have accumulated.
Most people never delete any of the emails they receive, which makes their inbox size humongous and prone to failure. Deleting emails from the Inbox is not enough because all it does is shift them to another folder. According to MDaemon Technologies, you must empty the deleted items folder to reduce the load.
You must be very careful to establish you are only getting rid of the messages you do not need since you can restore deleted messages from the trash folder, but once you have emptied the trash folder, the messages are lost forever.
Compact the PST folder
The PST file is at the heart of Outlook since it stores all the data. It is a single file containing every email in your inbox and archives, along with all the attachments. If the PST file becomes too large, you can notice a significant degradation in the performance of Outlook.
While earlier versions of Outlook limited the PST file to 2 GB, the current versions allow a limit of 18 GB. While it is great for using Outlook, a large PST file is more susceptible to corruption while also being a leading cause of poor performance. In addition to deleting the email messages you do not need, you should also compact the PST file to make it smaller.
The way to do it is to visit the account settings, click on the Data Files tab, and then on the PST file and select “Compact Now”. You can also repeat the steps to compact the OST file, the offline version of the PST file. In case, the PST file gets corrupted, you will need to use a PST fix utility to get going again.
Delete the Contents of the Spam Folder
If you take a look at your spam folder, you will be amazed to find thousands of messages there, all trying to promote something or the other or scam you. It is a good idea to keep emptying the spam folder periodically.
However, Outlook empties it automatically every 60 days to prevent the folder from assuming a large size. You may need to adjust the spam filters if you find important messages in the junk folder.
Remember, your systems administrator may also be filtering spam at the server level, so if someone who has sent you an email complains that you never replied to him, and you discover that you did not receive the message, it can be worthwhile to talk about it over with the admin.
Remove the Attachments from the PST File
One of the primary reasons for the size of the PST file swelling is the attachments to the emails. Because deleting them one by one can be tedious, you can use a utility that runs a VBA script to remove them automatically from the selected messages. However, since the attachments are lost forever, so you should not remove any attachments you think you will need later.
Conclusion
To have Outlook running smoothly and quickly on your device, you need to limit the number of emails. Deleting the unnecessary emails, deleting attachments you do not require, compacting PST files, and enabling features like Auto-Archive can help you to keep the PST file size under control. You must also ensure you are using the latest version of Outlook.
