Archive Emails Into an “Archive” Folder On Your Computer

These emails remain accessible within Outlook email on your computer only. If you use another computer they will not be visible.

Check that Outlook folders “On My Computer” are visible.

  1. Go to “Preferences…” in the Outlook menu at the top of your screen.
  2. Click the “General” icon in the upper left.
  3. Make sure “Hide On My Computer folders” is unchecked.
  4. Close the Outlook Preferences window.

Create an Archive Folder Within Outlook

  1. In the Outlook navigation pane on the left, look for an item called “On My Computer”. Just below that is an item named “Inbox”. This is different than your normal inbox since it is located on your computer hard drive and not on the email server. This is where your archive will reside.
  2. At the top of the screen go to “File”, down to “New”, and across to “Folder”.
  3. Type in a meaningful name for the new folder, such as ”Archive”.

Move Emails Into the Archive Folder

  1. Highlight the emails you want to archive.
  2. At the top of the screen, go to the “Message” menu, down to “Move”, then “Choose Folder”. A Search window will appear.
  3. In the Outlook Search window, type the name of your Archive folder. Verify it is the one you want.
  4. Click the “Move” button. The “Move” command copies items to your hard drive then deletes them from the server.

The “Move” time depends on the number of emails, network traffic, and email server activity. I’d recommend starting with a small number of emails and early in the morning or after school.