Tips and Hints for using Outlook Express

Outlook Express is a funny little program and needs to be managed carefully. Basically, when you load the program, all the e-mails you have saved are all loaded too. Each of the folders you create are saved as whole files - which can get very large if you have a lot of e-mails. As a result, all the e-mails and their attachments are 'wrapped up' in the Outlook Express program and all of them have to load into memory when you run Outlook Express. This means that if you have a lot of e-mails, this will readily cause the computer to either slow down dramatically - or even 'crash' - as it will run out of memory when trying to load them all! It is important, therefore, to manage Outlook Express carefully.

With that in mind, here are a couple of hints and suggestions:

1) Any attachments you receive from others, make sure you have saved these on to your hard drive in, say, 'My Documents'. Don't leave these attached and within the e-mail - and hence within Outlook Express. Apart from the fact that they are more difficult to get to, they clog up Outlook Express. Once you have saved the attachment, delete the e-mail that sent it otherwise the attachment will stay within Outlook Express as well! No need to have it twice!
2) Regularly delete any e-mails you no longer need
3) Make sure you regularly empty the 'Sent Items' folder. Any/every e-mail you have ever sent will be held in here until you delete them - including all e-mails with attachments. Again, only keep the e-mails you really need to keep here and delete all the others. These have to be deleted manually.
4) If you want to change the configuration settings of Outlook Express, choose Tools>Options from the main menu bar. Click on the Send tab. You don't have to keep a copy of e-mails that you have sent if you don't want to.
5) Whilst you are here, click on the Maintenance tab and ensure the option to 'empty the deleted items folder on exit' is ticked. Only if this is ticked will the 'deleted items' actually be deleted - otherwise they will just stay in that folder until you manually delete them.

Back to Top

 

Sending and Receiving

The Tools>Options menu gives you many different ways to set up Outlook Express to get it the way you like it. Set up a signature for your e-mails; configure the default font and text colour of your messages and so on. It also gives you options on how the program sends and receives e-mails. I recommend that you do not 'Send messages immediately' and do not 'Send and Receive messages at startup'

Unless you are on broadband, in general, it is much better not to have Outlook Express configured to Send/Receive on Start Up. Trying to connect to the internet at the same time as Outlook Express is loading can cause Outlook Express to crash. Better to allow the processor to run these two separate tasks one after the other. Load Outlook Express, write your e-mails and then click on Send/Receive when you are done writing. Or, if you only want to collect e-mails, dial-up to your ISP beforehand, then start Outlook Express and click on Send/Receive.

Back to Top

 

Layout

Another configuration option can be found in the View > Layout option in the menu bar. Here, you can configure the appearance and layout of Outlook Express - place the toolbars where you want; configure the panes that you have open and so. A little experimentation will give you the layout you like.

Back to Top

 

Getting it Sorted

It is a good idea to create different folders for the different people that you are in e-mail contact with. This way you can easily find all correspondence that you have had with that person without having tosift through 100's of old e-mails. Right-click on 'Local Folders' in the left hand pane and choose New Folder. Give the folder a name.

If you have not sorted your e-mails up till now, ensure you are looking at Inbox and then click on the Find button. Fill in their name in the 'From' field and put a tick in the 'Received before' box. Wnem all the e-mails of theirs have come up, click anywhere in that box and press the CTRL and A keys to highlight all the entries. Right-click on these highlighted entries and select 'Move to' and choose the folder you wish to put them into. Click OK and they will all be moved across.

To continue sorting them automatically, go to Tools>Message Rules>Mail and set up a new message rule for that person so that any new e-mails from them automatically get put into their folder!

Back to Top

 

Message Rules

This is a very useful utility. From here, you can block unwanted e-mails, put e-mails from people straight into the deleted items folder (a very handy way to get rid of Max Newmann for Xtra users...) or even prevent messages being downloaded from your ISP if you have multiple e-mail addresses being posted to the same POP3 address at your ISP. Check it out.

Back to Top

 

Compact All Folders

Another useful utility can be found on the File>Folder sub-menu. To compress all your e-mail folders, so they take up less room on your hard drive, choose Compact all folders. As explained above, all e-mails are saved all together in one file for each of the folders you create. As you delete e-mails, these files do not resize-themselves downwards until you compact the folder. This utility should therefore be run regularly - its like 'defragging' your e-mails! Do it at least once a month.

Back to Top

 

Backing Up E-mails and the Address Book

Outlook Express e-mails are not easy to back up within the program itself. The best way to do this is to find where they are on your hard drive and make a copy of the files and folders that way. Outlook Express normally stores e-mails at: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings \Application Data\Identities\ In this folder you will find a registry name in { } brackets, with sub-folders Microsoft and then Outlook Express. Your e-mail files are usually here.

The easiest way to locate them is to click on Start>Find>Files and Folders and search for *.dbx Copy and paste the whole lot to whatever backup medium you are using to save a copy of them all. Using this method, you will also see how many MB of space your e-mails are taking up. Try and ensure that the total amount of space used is less than half your RAM memory. If not, have a good clean out of all unwanted or no longer needed e-mails!

To back up your e-mail address book, click on Start>Find>Files and Folders and search for *.wab This is usually small enough that you can drag and drop a copy of it onto a floppy disc to safely back it up there.

Back to Top

 

Handy Outlook Express Shortcuts

CTRL + N = create a new e-mail

CTRL + R = reply to sender

CTRL + F = forward message

ALT + S = send e-mail

CTRL + M = send & receive (the F5 key also does this)

CTRL + SHIFT + B = opens address book

Back to Top