Email Tips - Outlook Express Data File Size

This one is for Outlook Express users (Windows XP).  If you have been using Outlook Express for a long time or if you receive a lot of email, you need to be careful about the amount of data you have.  Outlook Express gets very unhappy if any of your email folders exceed 1GB or 1000 messages.  Once you reach this point all bets are off and you could corrupt the data store and lose access to your email.  It may still run for a long time after hitting this point but it could fail at any time.  If you are worried, switch to the full MS Outlook product (2003 or later) which has a much higher limit on the overall data file size, or simply delete large amounts of old email, then be sure you empty the Deleted Items folder.  If you use Windows Live Mail or Windows Mail (Vista) this limit doesn’t apply as they store emails in a different fashion and you are limited really only by disk space.  If you are already an Outlook user, you still should keep an eye on your data file size.  You can check its size by going to Tools / Use the Archive function to archive old messages every 14 days to keep your main data file nice and fast.

Do you want to receive your email at two locations?  Just enable “leave a copy of messages on the server” in your email program on both PCs.  All email programs will have this setting.  Be sure to set them to clear after a few days though or mailbox at your ISP may get full.