Archive older items automatically

Email can fill your Outlook Inbox quickly – new messages, replies, and forwards. Before you know it, you could have thousands of messages. Keep your Outlook inbox and its folders under control by moving older items you want to keep to an archive. Use AutoArchive to do this automatically.

You can change how often AutoArchive runs, where it stores archived items, and how long Outlook keeps items before archiving them.

1. Click File > Options > Advanced.

2. Under AutoArchive, click AutoArchive Settings.

3. Click the Run AutoArchive every n days box and specify how often to run AutoArchive.

4. Choose any other options you want, such as having Outlook delete old items instead of archiving them.

Change the AutoArchive settings for an individual folder

1. In the Navigation Pane's folder list, right-click the folder you want to change, and click Properties.

2. On the AutoArchive tab, choose the options you want.

Archive items manually

You can also archive items manually whenever you want. That way, you can control which items to archive, where to store them, and how old an item needs to be before it can be archived.

1. Do one of the following:

   • In Outlook 2013: Click File > Info > Cleanup Tools > Archive.
     
     

   • In Outlook 2016: Click File > Info > Tools > Clean up old items
     
     
     
     

2. Click the Archive this folder and all subfolders option, and choose the folder you want to archive.

3. Under Archive items older than, enter a date.
   
   
   
   

4. You can create multiple .pst files if you want to archive some folders using different settings. For example, you may want to keep items in your Sent folder longer than items in your Inbox folder.

5. Check the Include items with “Do not AutoArchive” checked box to archive individual items that are excluded from automatic archiving. This option doesn't remove that exclusion from these items, but instead ignores the Do not AutoArchive setting for this archive only.

6. Click OK.

Turn off AutoArchive

To archive only when you want, turn off AutoArchive.

1. Click File > Options > Advanced.

2. Under AutoArchive, click AutoArchive Settings.

3. Uncheck the Run AutoArchive every n days box.