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OS X Entourage and your Quota

UH students, faculty, and staff are allotted 20 megabytes of storage for their email accounts. Once this quota is met, the user is unable to continue to receive email until they make room in their account. This document will discuss how to save your email to a local disk on your computer's hard drive and remove it from the mail server.

This document assumes you are using the Microsoft Entourage e-mail client. 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.

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 ITSDemo 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 e-mail). 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 e-mail 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.

GETTING HELP

If you require further assistance, contact the ITS Help Desk by sending e-mail to help@hawaii.edu, calling 956-8883, or visiting the Clic lab in Sinclair library, or the computer labs in Keller Hall 105 or 213. Neighbor islands may call toll free (800) 558-2669.