Mailbox Size Information
Staying below the mailbox size limit
It is very important to monitor your mailbox size. Every message in your account is counted towards your mailbox size. Remember to periodically empty your Sent Items, Deleted Items, and Drafts folders. Messages in these folders, as well as your attachments, count against your limit.
To check your mailbox size:
In Outlook 2007, faculty and staff can check their mailbox size by going to the Tools menu, click Mailbox Cleanup, and then View Mailbox Size. (This action is not currently available through Entourage.)
In Outlook Web Access (OWA, or post.uww.edu) with Internet Explorer, users can mouse-over their name listed above the inbox to show their mailbox size. (This action is not currently available through Firefox or Safari.)
You will receive a message stating "Your mailbox is over its size limit" each day you are nearing your limit.
You will receive a message stating "Your mailbox is full" each day you are over your limit.
The mailbox size limits are:
- Faculty/Staff Quota:
Warning at 300MB of used space, Prohibit send/receive at 350MB - Students Quota: Warning at 145MB of used space, Prohibit send/receive at 150MB
What to do if you are over the limit
You need to delete enough messages to get back under the mailbox size limit. Typically, deleting a message with a large attachment is the best way to reduce your mailbox size. You can identify the largest folder(s) in your mailbox using the "Check my Mailbox Size" tool. Look in these folders for messages to delete.
The problem is that when you attempt to delete a message, you will likely receive a error message stating:
"Some items could not be deleted. They were either moved or already deleted, or access was denied."
To work around this error message, you must "hard delete" the message:
- To "hard delete" a message, you must be using Internet Explorer.
- You can "hard delete" a selected message by highlighting it; then hold down the "SHIFT" key and press the "DELETE" key.
- You will be prompted to "Permanently delete the selected items?" - Click OK.
- This will permanently delete the selected message; the message will not go to the Deleted Items folder.
NOTE: You can also select multiple messages to be deleted: Click on the first message you want to select to highlight it; then click on the last message while holding the "SHIFT" key. This will select a range of messages. You can then "hard delete" the selected range of messages.
