Office 2011 and older clung to the artificial size limit of 2 GB for the database. The database may be damaged, or, it may be too big. There is no utility you have to use to clear the deleted items from the database. Mark all items and delete them so the folder is empty.
Highlight and delete anything you don't need. If you've deleted many large emails over time and have never purged the database this way before, you could see a huge difference in the size between the newly rebuilt database, and what it was before.Īll data for this version of Outlook is in your user account at ~/Library/Group Containers/ in the folder named:Ĭlose Outlook 2016 and back up this file before proceeding.Īs in the 2011 instructions, look through the Inbox, Sent Items and Junk E-Mail folders. If it appears to you the database was rebuilt correctly, you can delete the backup. Check it over to make sure you feel everything is there that's supposed to be (contacts, live emails, etc.). The new, normally named database is the cleaned up one which now has all of the emails deleted from the Deleted Items folder actually removed from the database.ĥ) Close the utility and relaunch Outlook normally. The folder with the bracketed time stamp is a backup of the rebuilt database. One by the same name, and one with the current date and time in brackets. Click Rebuild.Ĥ) When it's done, you'll have two entries. Instead of the normal interface, you will get the Microsoft Database Utility.ģ) If you have only the one email account in your user account, the only item listed should be Main Identity, and it will already be highlighted. All items deleted from the Deleted Items folder are still part of the Outlook 2011 database and are still taking up all of the disk space they did before you started deleting anything, except now they are hidden.Ģ) Hold the Option key and launch Outlook. While you would think you're done, you're not. Launch Outlook again and look through the Inbox, Sent Items and Junk E-Mail folders. Quit Outlook and back up this folder before doing any of the following. Your contacts, account settings, emails, etc. Especially those with large attachments.Įverything is saved in your user account under one monolithic database within a folder named Main Identity. Why would this be surprising? You get and send more emails over time, you don't delete many or any of them, they take up more space. Do you mean the Library folder in your user account?Īfter a few moths, the occupied disk space grows higher and higher. I found outlook distribute different folders in different size in folder Library.
How easy it is to clean up your emails depends on which version of Outlook you're talking about - 2011 or 2016.