How to organize your Outlook email data
A question I’ve received and/or encountered on more then one occasion is “What’s the best/recommended way to organize my email?” The reality is that like so many other things, there no “one size fits all” approach. Everyone works differently, thinks differently, and have different requirements. Given that there is no one answer that is the “best” or “recommended”, the following is intended to provide ideas that you can use to adapt to ways that you’re comfortable with.
The most common starting point in a discussion like this is with the creation of folders and sub-folders in which to organize your information. The other component mentioned on a less frequent basis, is the use of secondary PST files. At the most simplistic level, think of a PST file as a “filing cabinet”, and a folder being the “drawer”. For more complex filing requirements, the drawer is further divided into specific subject groups, the “sub-folders”.
Creating a top-level folder
To create a first tier folder (first tier = the same level as the <Inbox> folder, right-click on the <root> of the folder and select <New Folder>
After clicking on <New Folder> the following screen will appear where you will (3) give the new folder a name and most importantly, (4) making sure you create the right type of folder
Creating a sub-folder
Creating a sub-folder follows a near identical process with the exception being that you would right-click on the folder under which you want the sub-folder to appear. In the example shown, the sub-folder would be created under the <Inbox>
In the menu that appears above after right-clicking, you’ll notice that some options are disabled. The reason for that is that those options are not available to default standard folders like the the <Inbox>.
Alternative folder.sub-folder creation approach
As will be noticed in the <Create new folder screenshot (#3 & 4), you can also decide where to create the folder at that time. You are not restricted by where you initially clicked to get to the <New Folder> option.
Using multiple PST files
The next question becomes “do you create” all your new folders in the same PST file? Or to pose the question another way, how many PST files should you use?
Personally, I create separate PST files for major “topics”. For instance, one may related to “Program Developement”, another for “Projects”, “Family” etc etc etc. All comes down to you work and think. By think I mean that if I need to recall a message, it’s usually related to a major “topic” so need to wade through completely unrelated material.
Other benefits to using multiple PST files is that it keeps the size down of each file making things faster and less prone to errors along with that if an issue does arise with a given file, it minimizes the amount of data that may be lost. Of course we all maintain backups of all our data so actual permanent loss of should not really be a factor – right? Smaller files also make for faster backups.
Creating a new PST file (OL’2010 and beyond)
Follow these steps to create a new PST file
- click on the <Home> ribbon
- select <New Items> –> <More Items> –> Outlook Data File –> create it in the default location or you can chose to create the file anywhere on your hard drive
Avoiding extremes
The secret to good organization is making it reasonable and maintainable. If your structure ends up with hundreds upon hundreds of folders/sub-folders, it’s going to be a safe bet that at some point, you’re not going to be able to find anything. Similarly, creating an excessive number of PST files is also not recommended which eventually start to impact Outlook performance since, at a minimum, each file must be opened when Outlook starts. In cases like this, it’s really really easy to forget where something was filed making “organization” a counter-productive activity.
About archiving
Archiving is the process that allows you to remove data based on a time-frame, either saving it to another PST file or just deleting without saving. The archived data files are then used to access historical data via the search function. For instance, some people maintain email archive files by year. Once again, it’s all about how you think and naturally retrieve information in general. Personally, the first thing that comes to mind is the “major subject” of the material I want to retrieve far more then trying to figure out what year something was received. If you have 10 yrs worth of archive files, there may be a lot of searching required if the applicable year is not definitively known.
Detailed info on archiving is outside the scope of this article but you should at least be aware that you can set archiving options both at a global level and for individual folders (you cannot archive <contact folders>.
IMAP Considerations
Everything described above is based on the fact that you do not need or want to have access to all your data at all times across multiple devices. IMAP data is primarily stored on the server so if everything needs to be accessible, then folder need to organized in folders that are stored on the server as opposed to stand-alone PST files. In this case, the primary issue is your IMAP account capacity on the server which is going to determine how much data you can keep on line at any given time. Beyond that, the same considerations apply when organizing your data that you take offline.
Category: Outlook - How To
