Email is a very convenient tool when communicating with students, faculty, staff, friends and family. Unfortunately, many faculty and staff get hundreds of emails a day. Most of which go unread and unorganized. Eventually, there is so much email that performance of your email and the server which hosts your email can become affected, which is why email management is so very important.
From time to time, it is very important to do the following to guarantee that your email is performing to its highest potential:
- Organize your email into sub folders
- Delete any unwanted email messages.
- Mange your email attachments
- Archive any email that is important to keep handy but not immediately needed.
- Empty your trash bin.
- Retrieving deleted Items
Organizing Email into Sub folders
There are two ways in which you can organize your email.
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1. Move already received email to another folder. If you have mail that you want to automatically go into another folder, then follow Option #2. - Right click on the email that you want to move and select the Move to folder option. - The Move Items window appears. Select the Destination folder, or create a new folder. |
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2. Automatically move incoming mail to a specific folder. - Click on the Organize button that is located not eh top of your Microsoft Outlook program window. (Pictured on the left) |
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- The Ways to Organize Inbox window appears within Outlook. You can use this window to create "rules" by which your email can be sorted if it has already been received OR as it is received. Rules are an easy way to filter out annoying spam mail that is received. - To create your rule, it helps if you have the email that you want to set up the rule for selected first before you start setting up the rule. Select the email that you want the rule to apply to, select From or Sent to option, and select the folder into which the email should be sent. - You can become very particular with the filtering parameters. To see a large number of filtering parameters, Click on the Rules Wizard button located in the upper right hand corner of the Ways to Organize Inbox. |
Deleting Unwanted Email Messages
Deleting unwanted mail is an important step to maintaining a healthy email account. There are many ways to delete mail:
| 1. Select the email and pressing the DELETE key on the keyboard. | |
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2. Click on the email and drag and drop it into the Deleted Items bins located in the Outlook Shortcuts bar on the left hand side of the Outlook program window. |
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3. Select the email and click on the X icon at the top of the Outlook program window icon bar. |
| 4. Use the Rules Wizard to sort mail directly into the Deleted Items bin. |
Emptying the Trash Bin
Typically, the Deleted Items bin is the most often overlooked folder that gains size incessantly, yet is never archived or deleted. There are two ways to manage the Deleted Items bin so that it does not become a hidden problem.
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Option 1. Auto-Delete: Click on Tools - Options from the Outlook program window menu bar. Under the OTHER tab, check the box for: Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting. This will automatically empty the Deleted Items bin when Outlook is closed. |
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Option 2. Manual Empty: Right click on the Deleted Items icon located in the Outlook shortcuts area to the left side of the Outlook program. Select "Empty "Deleted Items" folder. |
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Options 3: "Double Delete": Open the Deleted Items folder. Select a message to be deleted (press CTRL-A to select all messages) and press the Delete key or click the X icon at the top of the Outlook Program icon bar. |
Retrieving Deleted Items
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If a message was accidentally deleted and then removed from the Deleted Items folder, it can still be recovered. While the Deleted Items folder is open, click on Tools - Recover Deleted Items. A Recover deleted Items window appears. Select the message that needs to be recovered and click on the Envelope with the arrow above icon. This will retrieve the message (s) to the Deleted items folder. |