Pitt Email: Free Up Space By Eliminating Stale Data

Eliminating stale data from your Pitt Email account frees up storage space for faster performance, makes finding important messages easier, and reduces Pitt's carbon footprint. With a few strategic cleanup techniques, you can significantly reduce your mailbox storage footprint.. 

Check Your Current Mailbox Size

Here's how to see how much storage space your Pitt Email (Outlook) mailbox is using.

In the Outlook Desktop Application

  1. Open Outlook
  2. Right-click on your mailbox name (your email address) in the folder list
  3. Select Data File Properties
  4. Click Folder Size to see the total size of your mailbox and individual folders

In Outlook on the Web

  1. Log in my.pitt.edu, search for Pitt Email, and click the Pitt Email task. 
  2. Click the Settings (gear icon) in the upper right
  3. Click Account > Storage to view your mailbox storage usage

Strategies to Reduce Your Pitt Email Storage

Quick Win: Find and Delete Your Largest Email Messages

Using Mailbox Cleanup Tool (Desktop Outlook)

  1. Open Outlook and select File > Tools > Mailbox Cleanup
  2. Click Find items larger than
  3. Enter a size (try 5000 KB to start—that's about 5 MB)
  4. Click Find to see a list of all messages larger than your specified size
  5. Review the results and delete messages with large attachments you no longer need
  6. Empty your Deleted Items folder when done
  • Tip: Before deleting emails with important attachments, save the attachments to your computer first.

Empty Your Deleted Items Folder

Files in your Deleted Items folder continue to consume storage until the folder is emptied.

  1. In Outlook, right-click the Deleted Items folder in the left navigation
  2. Select Empty Folder
  3. Click Yes to confirm permanent deletion 

Tip: Make this a weekly habit! Set a "Fresh Start Friday" reminder to empty your Deleted Items folder every Friday.

Clean Up Your Junk Email Folder

Your Junk Email folder can accumulate spam quickly and consume significant storage.

  1. Review the Junk Email folder to make sure nothing important was incorrectly filtered
  2. Right-click the Junk Email folder
  3. Select Empty Folder
  4. Click Yes to confirm

Tip: Set a calendar reminder to empty Junk Email monthly.

Clean Up Email Conversation Threads

Long email threads often contain redundant messages where each reply quotes all previous messages. Outlook can remove this duplicated content automatically.

  1. Select an email conversation (thread) in your inbox
  2. Go to the Home tab in the ribbon
  3. Click Clean Up in the Delete section
  4. Choose:
  • Clean Up Conversation (cleans selected thread)
  • Clean Up Folder (cleans all threads in current folder)
  • Clean Up Folder & Subfolders (most thorough)

Outlook moves redundant messages to Deleted Items. Empty your Deleted Items folder to complete the process

  • Tip: This works best on long email threads with many back-and-forth replies.

Search for and Delete Old Emails by Date

Remove emails from completed projects, past semesters, or old initiatives:

  1. Click in the Outlook search box
  2. Type: received:<1/1/2023 (finds emails received before January 1, 2023)
  3. Review results and delete emails you no longer need
  4. Empty Deleted Items folder

Tip: Adjust the date based on your needs. You can also search by sender if you want to clean up all emails from a specific person or listserv.

Delete Old Sent Items

Your Sent Items folder can consume as much space as your Inbox but is often overlooked.

  1. Open your Sent Items folder
  2. Sort by Size to find your largest sent messages
  3. Delete messages from old projects, outdated communications, or messages with large attachments you no longer need
  4. Empty your Deleted Items folder

Tip: Focus on emails you sent more than 12 months ago, especially those with large attachments that you've likely saved elsewhere.

Use Mailbox Cleanup to Find Old Items (Desktop Outlook)

The Mailbox Cleanup tool provides a comprehensive view of your mailbox:

  1. Select File > Tools > Mailbox Cleanup
  2. Review these options:
  • View Mailbox Size: See total mailbox size and size of each folder
  • Find items older than: Search for emails from a specific date range
  • Find items larger than: Search by file size
  • View Deleted Items Size: Check how much space Deleted Items is consuming
  • Empty Deleted Items folder: Permanently delete items

Use these tools to systematically clean your mailbox.

Set Up "Fresh Start Fridays"

Create a weekly habit to maintain a clean mailbox:

  1. Every Friday, spend 5 minutes deleting emails you no longer need
  2. Empty your Deleted Items folder
  3. Review and delete Junk Email
  4. Start each week with a cleaner inbox
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