Everyone is issued a maximum amount of email space and once this quota is reached at 100%, you will be unable to receive any other mail. This document shows you how to save your email to a local disk on your computer's hard drive and remove it from the mail server, thus conserving space on the mail server. At the same time, this also allows you to have a local archive of your email.

This document assumes you are using the Microsoft Entourage 2004 or 2008 email client for OS X. The instructions for 2008 are located here. It is also assumed that Entourage has been configured to use the IMAP protocol.

Cleanup

The first step in reducing your disk space usage should be cleaning up your current email. Delete any emails that are no longer needed, especially emails with attachments.

Entourage 2004 Saving email

The Entourage window is composed of three frames. The frame on the left displays your mail folders, both local and online. This is the frame we will be most concerned about for saving your email messages. In the figure below is an example of the Entourage window. Notice that in the frame on the left, there is a list of all the email folders, including two folders with drop down arrows. The folder called On My Computer is where all folders on the local hard disk are found. The folder called UH E-mail is where all the folders online are found. Note, the name of the folders on your Mac may be different, depending on how you configured your Entourage application.

Create new local folder

Create a new local folder where you will store the email you no longer need to have online. To create a new local folder, click on the Inbox under the On My Computer folder. Then click on the File menu, click New, and then click on Folder. Note, ensure you click on the Inbox under the On My Computer folder BEFORE creating the new folder. Doing so will ensure the newly created folder will be on your local hard drive. See figure below.

Next, Give the folder a name and press the Enter key on your keyboard. See figure below.

Move email to new folder

Now, select the email you wish to move offline and have saved in your local folder. Simply drag the emails that are to be saved into the new local folder that was created in the previous step. In the figure below, the email messages from ITS Demo in the Inbox was selected and moved into the new local folder, Saved E-mail.

Verify email has been saved

To verify that the email has been saved to your local hard disk, click on the new folder you created (saved email). The saved email should be displayed in the frame on the right. See figure below.

Purge saved emails from server

After saving the emails to your local hard drive, you must delete them from the server to clear disk space. To do this, select the emails on the server that you wish to delete and click on the Trash icon on the toolbar. In the figure below, the emails from ITS Demo were selected from the Inbox on the server.

After clicking on the Trash icon to delete the selected messages, the emails are moved to the Deleted Messages folder. Note, the name of the folder may be different, depending on how you configured your Entourage application. In the figure below, the deleted messages have been moved to the Deleted Messages folder.

Entourage will automatically purge the deleted emails when you quit the program. To ensure you have this option configured, click on the Tools menu and then click on Accounts. See figure below.

Next, click once on your UH email account to select it, and then click on the Edit button. Click on the Advanced tab. Ensure the option Move messages to the "Deleted Items" folder is selected, and choose the appropriate folder to move the deleted messages to. Then ensure the Empty "Deleted Items" folder on quit check box is checked. Then click on the OK button. See figure below.

That's it, after you quit the Entourage application, the deleted emails will be removed from the server, clearing disk space from your quota.

Moving email messages back online

There may come a time when you wish to move the emails you saved onto your local hard disk back online to be accessed from different locations. The process of moving the email back online is very similar to the process of saving them to your local hard disk.

Create new folder on server

First, be sure to click once on the server folder (UH E-mail) to select it. Then go to the File menu, click New, and then click Folder. See figure below.

Next, Give the folder a name and click on the Create button. See figure below.

Move email to new online folder

Now, select the email you wish to move online to be accessed from multiple locations. Simply drag the emails that are to be uploaded into the new online folder that was created in the previous step. In the figure below, the email messages from Saved E-mail was selected and moved into the new online folder, Upload E-mail.

That's it, your email is now back online. The email messages have been copied from the local folder and placed in the newly created folder online. These email messages now count against your quota, but they are able to be accessed from multiple locations.

Entourage 2008 Saving Email

The Entourage window is composed of three frames. The frame on the left displays your mail folders, both local and online. This is the frame we will be most concerned about for saving your email messages. In the figure below is an example of the Entourage window. Notice that in the frame on the left, there is a list of all the email folders. The folder called On My Computer is where all folders on the local hard disk are found. The folder called UH E-mail is where all the folders online are found. Note, the name of the folders on your Mac may be different, depending on how you configured your Entourage application.

Create new local folder

To download messages to your computer and free up your email quota, you first need to create a new local folder.

1. Click on the Inbox under the "On My Computer" folder.
    
2. Click on the File menu, click New, and then click on Folder.
   
   

   Note: make sure that you click on the "Inbox" under the "On My Computer" folder BEFORE creating the new folder. Doing so will ensure the newly created folder will be on your local hard drive.

3. Type a name for your new folder (e.g. "Saved E-mail"), and press the return key.

   

Move email to new folder

Now that you have created a local folder to store your email, you need to actually download your messages into this folder.

1. In your Inbox (in this example, it would be the Inbox listed under the "UH E-mail" section), select the messages you want to download to your computer. To select a message, click on it once. To select multiple contiguous messages, click once on the first message, hold down the shift key, then click on the last message. To select multiple non-contiguous messages, click once on the first message, then hold down the command (apple) key while clicking on the other messages.
    
2. Drag the selected messages and drop them onto the Saved E-mail folder. (Let go of the mouse when the folder is highlighted.)

Verify email has been saved

After you have downloaded the messages, you should verify that they were saved correctly.

1. In the left column, click on the local folder you created.  In our example, we clicked on Saved E-mail
2. The downloaded messages should be listed in the middle column.
   
   

Purge downloaded emails from server

After you have verified that your messages have been saved into the local folder, you need to purge the messages from the server.

1. Select your Inbox (in this example, it would be the Inbox listed under the "UH E-mail" section).
2. Depending on your "Delete options" setting, the messages you downloaded will now have a line through them and a red X to the left, or they may have been moved into your "Trash" folder.
3. If your downloaded messages have the red X next to them, you can remove the from the server by going to the Edit menu and selecting Purge Deleted Items
   
   

    

4. If your downloaded messages have been moved to your Trash folder, make sure you have turned on the option to purge deleted emails.
   
   
   1. Go to the Tools menu and select Accounts
   2. Double click on the account for your UH email
   3. Click on the Advanced tab
   4. Check the box next to "Purge Deleted Items folder on quit"
   5. Click OK

      

       

   
   When you next quit Entourage, all messages in your Trash folder will be permanently deleted.

You have now finished downloading and deleting messages from the mail server.  The messages you have downloaded no longer count towards your mail quota; but they can only be viewed from the computer you are currently using.

Moving messages back online

1. Create a new folder on the server. Click on your Inbox (in the example, it would be the Inbox under "UH E-mail"), to select it, then go to the File menu, select New, then select Folder. The New Folder window will appear.  Type a name for the folder, then click Create. In the example, the new folder was named Upload E-mail.
   
   

    

2. Select the email messages that you wish to move back to the server. To select a message, click on it once. To select multiple contiguous messages, click once on the first message, hold down the shift key, then click on the last message. To select multiple non-contiguous messages, click once on the first message, then hold down the command (apple) key while clicking on the other messages.  In our example, we moved back the same three messages we originally downloaded. Drag them onto the folder you created in Step 1.
3. Click on the folder (in the example it would be "Upload E-mail") and confirm that your messages are there.

   

    

You have now moved your messages back to the mail server.  They can now be accessed from any computer, but they also count towards your mail quota.

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