Store Emails Outside of Outlook

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About this lesson

There comes a time to finish a project, but keep all the email correspondence 'outside' of Outlook.
This helps to keep Outlook's file size small and nimble.

Exercise files

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7.05 store-emails-outside-of-outlook - Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Store Emails Outside of Outlook

Options to move emails somewhere else and free up space inside Outlook.

When to use

When a project is finished but email folders take up storage space and have multiple attachments.

Instructions

Option 1: Export the folder contents to a .pst file, which becomes a backup and can be imported and reopened with Outlook.

Option 2: Export the folder contents to a .csv file, which becomes a backup and can be imported and reopened with Outlook, Word or Excel.

Instructions:

  • Click File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Export to a File
  • Choose either file type > find the file location > name the file > click Finish

Note for Options 1 and 2: It might be useful to also type a note, using either Outlook Notes or NotePad, with instructions on how to re-import to Outlook should that day come. Text below:

Outlook - re-import emails

1. in Outlook, click the File Ribbon, Open & Export, Import/Export button
2. choose "Import from another program or file", click OK
3. choose either .csv or .pst (depends on the file extension that you saved it as)
4. click BROWSE and find the file
5. click Next and follow the prompts to finish

Option 3: Use OneNote to keep individual emails handy.  Right-click the email and choose “Send to OneNote”.

Option 4: Using a third-party software (installed as an Add-In, i.e. Adobe) you can convert to .pdf format and store it in a separate location.

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  • 00:05 There may come a time when your Outlook folder is just too big and
  • 00:08 you've got to dump emails.
  • 00:10 But what if it was an important project, it's done, but
  • 00:12 you don't want to delete everything?
  • 00:15 Well, you could actually move them out of Outlook entirely into a folder on your
  • 00:19 hard drive.
  • 00:20 Here's how.
  • 00:21 We have the first two options.
  • 00:22 Export the folder contents to a PST, which is an Outlook file, or
  • 00:26 a CSV, which is an Excel file.
  • 00:28 Keep in mind, all of the emails will land in a spreadsheet and
  • 00:32 cannot be imported back into Outlook.
  • 00:35 Well, I guess it could be, but it might be messy.
  • 00:38 The PST will reimport individual emails back into Outlook if you ever need to
  • 00:42 review them again.
  • 00:43 Let's go ahead and show you the process.
  • 00:45 I'll click back on my Outlook, click on the folder I want to export,
  • 00:51 go up to File > Open & Export > Import/Export,
  • 00:56 and now we're going to export to a file and click Next.
  • 01:01 CSV is the Excel format, PST is the Outlook format.
  • 01:05 Let's do them both.
  • 01:07 Click Next.
  • 01:09 This is the folder I want to export.
  • 01:11 Click Next.
  • 01:14 And now I just want to find where I want them to land, on my desktop,
  • 01:18 in a file I've already created.
  • 01:21 I'm going to name them Client emails.
  • 01:23 Notice they say CSV, that's an Excel format.
  • 01:27 Hit OK > Next > Finish.
  • 01:32 Okay, let's do this right now while I'm still here as the PST, the Outlook format,
  • 01:37 same process.
  • 01:37 File > Open & Export > Import/Export
  • 01:42 > Export to a file > Next > PST > Next.
  • 01:47 Yes, that's the folder I want to export, Next > Browse.
  • 01:53 Make sure it's pointing to the correct folder, Open > OK > Finish.
  • 02:00 I'm not going to password this.
  • 02:03 Okay, those are exported.
  • 02:04 Even though they're still here,
  • 02:06 I'm safe to delete these right now because I have an Outlook backup.
  • 02:09 Let's go jump into that folder and show you something.
  • 02:13 There is the Excel formatted ones and here's the PST ones.
  • 02:17 You will not be able to double-click and open this, it won't open,
  • 02:21 it must be imported.
  • 02:22 Are you going to remember that a few months down the road when you need
  • 02:25 these emails?
  • 02:27 It's a good idea to write yourself a note.
  • 02:30 Just open up notepad, write yourself instructions on how to import these.
  • 02:36 I'm going to include these instructions in the reference document of this lesson.
  • 02:41 I do want to open up the Excel so you can see what it looks like.
  • 02:45 Double-click, opening Excel, and this is how your emails will look in here.
  • 02:52 And you would just arrow down to the next one, and the next one, and the next one.
  • 02:56 Not a friendly format, but technically, they are saved.
  • 02:59 I'm going to go ahead and close that.
  • 03:05 Okay, going back to our other options, there's a couple more.
  • 03:09 Option 3, you can use OneNote to keep the individual emails handy.
  • 03:13 Click the email and choose Send to OneNote.
  • 03:14 We had an entire lesson on how to use OneNote.
  • 03:18 And here's another option.
  • 03:19 Using a third-party software installed as an add-in, for instance, Adobe,
  • 03:24 you can convert to PDF format and store those in a separate location,
  • 03:28 which is actually kind of nice.
  • 03:30 Because the PDFs are full-page printouts, digital, stored in a file location.
  • 03:36 They cannot be reimported back to Outlook, but at least, you'd have the full email.
  • 03:41 So in this particular case, I would have had to have purchased the Adobe software,
  • 03:47 and then it would attach to my Outlook via the add-in process.
  • 03:51 And then under the File ribbon left-hand panel,
  • 03:54 I'd have a new one that says Save as Adobe PDF.
  • 03:57 I don't have that setup on this particular computer that I'm using,
  • 04:01 but here is a screenshot of it should you ever add Adobe to your system.
  • 04:05 Okay, well, those are the four options to clean up your files in Outlook and
  • 04:10 save some space.

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