Outlook folders can get fat over time, so it’s good to compact them occasionally. Depending how bad your email database file has become, this can really speed up Outlook and it was certainly save you some file space.

The instructions for compacting vary very slightly depending on whether your outlook is connected to an Exchange server or not. For today’s blog, I’ll show you how to compact if you are connected to Exchange.

In order to compact your email database, right click on the mailbox that you want to compact and click on properties

This will bring up a properties window where you should click on the “Advanced” button.

In the Advanced Tab, click Offline Folder File Settings…

A new Offline Folder Settings windows will open. Click Compact Now.

The compacting window will open. Leave Outlook to do it’s compacting until it’s finished. It’s not unusual to achieve a saving of 25% in your file size. Given that Outlook files can be large, that can save a lot of search time later on.