Mailbox Size Quota
The mail server is a shared resource. Each staff member's electronic mailbox has a
512MB quota for active mail. Active mail is stored on the server, and can be accessed not only by Outlook, but also through the webmail interface. This is enough space to hold tens of thousands messages, appointments, contacts, tasks and notes.
We will continue to evaluate quotas and make adjustments on an ongoing basis as resources permit.
Your server mailbox always shows up in Outlook with the prefix "Mailbox" and your name. This is where your new messages are delivered. You should also have a set of folders called by "Archive Folders", which are stored in a different way. There is no real limit on the amount of mail that can be stored in the archive, but messages in this location can only be accessed from Outlook while you are logged in to a Student Affairs computer.
Attachment Management
Watch out for attachments! A single attachment can consume a large percentage of your mailbox. You should keep this in mind while sending documents as well, not only because the person receiving your message may also have a quota, but also because that sent message is stored in your Sent Items folder! If you are sharing documents with other people in your department, you should use your department's shared folders on the H drive instead of distributing documents via electronic mail. If you often collaborate with other staff in the division, the IT Operations Group may be able to arrange shared space for this purpose as well.
Sending Attachments
Sending text is always the way to send information that is guaranteed to be compatible with anyone receiving it. For example, sending the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." is very small,
and can be viewed by anyone. Sending the same sentence in
a Microsoft Word document takes almost 500 times the space!
Unless you are sending a document that will be modified by the recipient, avoid sending Microsoft Office documents. In addition, not everyone uses Microsoft Office, or may not have the same version or components installed, and you may find that some people may not be able to read your attachment.
Converting the document to PDF dramatically decreases the size of the attachment. You can convert any printable document into a PDF file by printing it and choosing "Acrobat PDF" or "Adobe PDF" as the printer. PDF viewing software is available for almost any computer.
Please remember that an electronic mailbox is for messages, and is not designed to be a storage location for documents! Documents stored on the server are easier to edit, back up, and, in the event of a problem, restore.
Receiving Attachments
If you receive a message with a large attachment, you should save the attachment to the H drive (for
departmental documents) or to your My Documents folder (for private documents) and delete the message. This will minimize the impact on the size of your mailbox. It will also ensure that the document is properly backed up and can be restored later, if necessary.
Workgroup Document Creation
Every department has the need for the collaborative creation, editing, and distribution of important documents. E-mail has been a popular technology this process though it is not the best choice for this type of collaboration, though, and results in many people keeping duplicates of documents, as well as the possibility of those copies being outdated. A shared location in one of your H drive folders is the best solution to ensure that everyone has access to a particular document.
The IT Operations group also has other solutions for collaborative editing and version control of documents.
Reaching the Quota
A nightly message is generated for users that are within about 10% of reaching the quota. This gives you the opportunity to proactively clean up your mailbox before hitting the limit. If you hit the limit, the server may indicate that you can no longer send messages. If you reach your quota, you will still receive any messages sent to you.
Outlook has made it easy to identify why your mailbox is full with its mailbox cleanup options. To access these options, choose "Mailbox Cleanup..." from the tools menu.
View Mailbox Size
Viewing the mailbox size will give you a great idea about where the bulk of your e-mail is currently being stored. A good place to look is usually your sent items folder! Attachments you have recently sent will be there taking up space, and you probably have a copy of the document somewhere else.
This is a sample of what you might see in your folder list.
The current
512 MB quota is equivalent to 524,288 KB. In this example, you can see that the mailbox is about
10% filled, and that the sent items folder is using 5% of the quota.
Finding Large Items
Generally it is a very small number of e-mail messages that is taking up a very large amount of space. Finding those messages is easy using the find button. It will select and display all of the messages in your box that are unusually large.
Clicking on the "Size" header (in the red oval) will sort the messages by their size, with the largest on top. Saving the attachments onto the server and deleting a few messages at the top of the list with a size of at least 1 MB will usually do the trick. Every
5 MB you see in this list is 1% of your mailbox quota!
In this example, notice that all of the largest items have attachments (paperclip icon) and the top four messages are using
2% of the mailbox quota. Also notice that three of those messages were sent items that you can probably just delete!
Auto Archive
In addition to having an active mailbox, you also may keep an archive of old messages. The archive is available when you are online in Outlook, but not via the web interface. Outlook offers the ability to automatically copy messages to the archive at regular intervals, or at your request.
The Operations Group can assist you in configuring your archive for the first time. Although Outlook will do it on its own, it tries to put the archive file in a location that is not backed up.
Emptying Deleted Items
This button empties your Deleted Items folder. The system automatically purges deleted items on a regular basis, but if you have recently deleted a large message, you may want to empty it yourself.