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Exchange Email Storage

Email storage on the Exchange system is provided for currently enrolled students, faculty, staff, or approved affiliates of the University of Kansas. The default email storage sizes for each group are listed below.

We've listed some Mailbox Management tips for users approaching their default limits below.

Exchange Email Storage Defaults

Faculty, staff, and student accounts have a default email storage quota of 500 MB. If more space is needed beyond the 500 MB default, you may request an increase in your email storage.

  • Faculty/staff/student accounts exceeding 480 MB will receive warning messages from the system administrator.
  • Faculty/staff/student accounts exceeding 490 MB will be unable to send messages.
  • Faculty/staff/student accounts exceeding 500 MB will be unable to send or receive messages.

Departmental Accounts

Are you a faculty or staff member who finds that your email storage is filling up because of email related to a departmental task or function? If so, see if a separate departmental account would be appropriate for you.

Departmental accounts have a default email storage quota of 100 MB.

  • Departmental accounts exceeding 80 MB will receive warning messages from the system administrator.
  • Departmental accounts exceeding 90 MB will be unable to send messages.
  • Departmental accounts exceeding 100 MB will be unable to send or receive messages.

Help! My mailbox is over the size limit

If you are getting messages from the System Administrator stating that "Your mailbox is over its size limit," you need to delete items from your account to clear up more space. You should receive this System Administrator message when your account reaches the appropriate warning limit shown above. Following are tips to help you manage your mailbox and keep it below the limits:

Empty Deleted Items folder

When you delete an item in Outlook or Entourage, it will remain in the Deleted Items folder for fourteen days before it is automatically deleted. You can permanently delete individual items from the Deleted Items folder before fourteen days have elapsed by selecting them and hitting the Delete key, or you can empty the entire folder.

To empty all Deleted Items in Outlook and Entourage, right-click (Macs control-click) on the Deleted Items folder and select Empty Deleted Items from the menu.

To empty all Deleted Items in Outlook Web Access, open the Deleted Items folder and click on the Recycle Bin in the toolbar above the list of deleted messages. You will be asked if you want to permanently delete all the messages and subfolders in the Deleted Items folder. Click OK to delete the messages.

Items removed from the Deleted Items folder may be recovered within 7 days of their deletion by following the instructions in http://www.email.ku.edu/owa/options.shtml#recover.

IMAP and POP users:
Only the items in the Deleted Items folder in your Exchange mailbox will automatically be deleted after 14 days. If you use email software (Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Eudora, Mac Mail, etc.) that places deleted items into any folder other than Deleted Items (Trash and Deleted are the two most common), you will have to empty that folder manually, just as you do now.

Check folder size

It is possible that the contents of a single folder, like Sent Items, are causing you to go over the limit. You can check the size of your folders to determine if there is one or two in particular that are causing your problem.

Outlook (Windows) Entourage (Mac)
  1. Right-click on Outlook Today from the Folder List.
  2. Choose Properties from the menu.
  3. Click the Folder Size... button on the Properties window. Outlook calculates how much space your entire account is using and will give you a list of individual folder sizes.
  4. Review the sizes of the individual folders to see which one(s) are the largest.
  1. Click on the folder on the left side of the screen that holds all of your other email folders. It is usually labeled with your email address.
  2. Go to Edit > Folder Properties > Storage.
  3. The folder size for your entire mailbox is displayed next to Total Size (with subfolders).
  4. The storage space used by each folder is in the Total Size column. Click on Total Size to sort the folders by storage space.

Check attachment size

If you determine that one or two folders are taking up most of your mailbox space, then sort items in those folders by size. This will help you determine if one or two messages with large attachments are causing your space problem. You will need to add the "Size" field to your Information Viewer (the part of the screen that lists messages in a folder).

Outlook (Windows) Entourage (Mac)
  1. On the View menu, point to Current View, and then click Customize Current View.
  2. Click Fields.
  3. In the Available box, click the Size field.
  4. Click Add.
  5. Click on the Size column header to sort by size.  Click again to sort in descending order to see the largest files at the top
  1. Locate the folder that you wish to sort by size on the left side of the screen. Click on the folder to select it. The items in the folder will appear on the right side of the screen.
  2. Click on the Size button above the list of messages to sort by size. Click again to sort in descending order to see the largest files at the top.

Archive old email

If you have email that you would like to keep, but that doesn't need to be accessed from anywhere you're reading your email, archiving is an ideal solution. Archiving allows you to move email from your Exchange mailbox to a location on your computer or departmental file server. Attachments will stay with the message, so the context of the attachment will be preserved.

You will be able to see the archived email only when you are at the computer where you have archived it, so it's best for users that have multiple computers to choose one where archival information will be kept.

Archiving in Outlook

Instructions for auto-archiving (Windows only) and creating personal folders are included in the Outlook: Storing Email handout that can be downloaded in PDF format.

Archiving in Entourage

Entourage users can drag items that they no longer need to keep in their mailbox to Folders on My Computer (on the left side of the main Entourage screen). Items in Folders on My Computer are stored on the hard drive of the computer and are accessible only from that computer.

Move attachments out of your mailbox

Moving attachments off the Exchange server and saving them on your computer or local server will reduce the amount of space you are using on the Exchange server.

Outlook (Windows) Entourage (Mac)
  1. Open the message and right-click on the attachment.
  2. Choose the Save As option and save the item to your computer.
  3. Highlight the attachment in the email and hit the delete key on your keyboard.
  4. Replace the attachment with a line that says <filename.xxx attachment moved to (location) >. Then if you need to find that attachment later you know the name of the file.
  5. When you close the message window it will ask if you want to save changes. Select Yes.
 Entourage 2004 does not allow attachments to be removed from messages.