Email boxes on the SF Opera email server have a maximum size of 3 GB.  If your mailbox approaches that size limit, you will receive an email from the system.  It’s a good idea to spend some time reducing the size of your mailbox. There are two methods that are easiest to do this:  1) searching for and deleting large attachments, or 2) moving email into an archive file.

Dealing with attachments

Attachments to email are the primary cause of a large email box.  To search for large attachments, do the following:

  1. In Outlook, click the File tab in the top-left corner.
  2. In the Mailbox Settings section on the right, click the large Tools button and choose Mailbox Cleanup.
  3. In the second section, chose the ‘Find items larger than’ bullet.  The default size is 250 kilobytes (approximately ¼ of a megabyte).  You can either increase that number or use the default.
  4. Click the Find… button.  After a few seconds, a window will open with a list of each email in your mailbox that is larger than the size you specified.  If you maximize this window and click on the Size header, the list will be ordered with the largest items at the top.  From this window you can manipulate the larger items.  If you need the attachments, you can save the attachment and then delete the email.  Deleting most of the larger emails will significantly reduce the size of your mailbox.

 

Archiving Email

If you prefer not to delete items as outlined above, you can create an archive file and move items into it.  To do so:

  1. In Outlook, click the File tab in the top-left corner.
  2. Click the large Account Settings button on the right and choose ‘Account Settings…’
  3. Click the Data Files tab in the Account Settings window that opens.
  4. Click the Add… button.  This will open an Explorer window. Make sure to add the Outlook Files folder in your Documents. Your Documents folders is backed up on a daily basis so it's critical that files are saved here.
  5. Either accept the default file name (My Outlook Data File.pst), or type a different name.  We suggest archive.pst or something similar.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click Close.
  8. You should now see the file you just created in your folders list.  You can create folders there, or move folders or email from your mailbox to this file by right-clicking on the folder or email, choosing Move Folder, and navigating to the archive file.