Some people like to have more control over when Outlook archives. Or, sometimes a lot of mail piles up and you may need to archive earlier than planned. Luckily, there’s an easy way to have complete control every time Outlook archives data.

 

To start the process, click the folder you want to archive. (If you want to archive all your folders, click Personal Folders). Then, click the File menu and click Archive.

  

You can see a sample of the manual archive window below; its options are pretty easy to use.

 

 

Our first option is to use the AutoArchive settings. By default, the second option (to specify certain folders) is selected.

 

We can then select a folder in the main white window; if we want to archive all folders we should click Personal Folders.

 

At the bottom of this window we can specify the date; everything before this date will be archived. (If you click the down arrow next to the date, Outlook will give you a calendar to choose from.)

 

We can also tell Outlook to ignore any exceptions we made earlier by checking the Include items with “Do not AutoArchive” checked option. Last but not least, we can specify a file to save to. Then, click OK to archive!

 

This option is great for people who archive very rarely (i.e., at the end of every year), or who only archive when too much mail piles up in their folders. If you’re a regular user of Outlook, it may be easier to set your AutoArchive options and let Outlook do the work!