Managing Your Email

Email Pack Rats and the People Who Love Them

Are you a digital pack rat? Take the quiz and find out!

Do you have 7 yottabytes of storage and it’s all full?
Does a search of your hard drive yield more information than the Internet?
Do you have emails from 10 years ago?
Do you get goose bumps when you see that Systems has increased your electronic mail disk storage quota?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the questions, you just might be a digital pack rat and/or more specifically, an email pack rat.

Dust bunnies and email: just because you don’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there

Email can become space inefficient. Although email is digital, it is still bound by the dimension of space. Since upgrading to the new Exchange server, Cal Poly Pomona’s email system provides larger email storage quotas for users, but email storage is also being consumed more quickly.

When a user’s email storage approaches its quota, the user will receive a message from the central Exchange email application saying that they are about to exceed their electronic mail disk storage quota.

(Incidentally, although it is ironic that the warning email does contribute to the mail-clogging issue, it is far from being the cause of your excessive disk storage woes…even though you feel like it is.)

The warning message may be similar to the one below:

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Stop saving those email forwards. Clean out your mailbox.

Ok, that’s not verbatim, but that’s the subtext.

You’ll probably receive a message that is more traditional:

Your mailbox has exceeded one or more size limits set by your administrator. Your mailbox size is 404006 KB.

Mailbox size limits: You will receive a warning when your mailbox reaches 400000 KB. You may not be able to send or receive new mail until you reduce your mailbox size.

Yes, it’s true. If you reach your mailbox limit, you may not be able to receive or send email. Now, be a friend and forward this message to 5 friends.

“But I did delete all my emails”

Like good housekeeping, messages aren’t actually deleted until you empty the Trash or Deleted Items folder.

To make more space available, delete any items that you are no longer using. Items in all of your mailbox folders including the Deleted Items and Sent Items folders count against your size limit. You must empty the Deleted Items folder after deleting items or the space will not be freed.

Email Pack Rat User Group

For you diehard email pack rats who feel the need to save your emails from 1998, move them to file storage (i.e.: burn them on to a CD, etc.).

For directions on how to copy files to a CD, visit:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011266991033.aspx?pid=CL100626971033

Email Quota Increase

Users with special needs may request quota increases via the Help Desk. Let common sense define what a special need is. And if you’re still not sure, perhaps the following image will offer some clarification.
Image of a cart overloaded with so many heavy boxes that the cart has tilted backwards, causing the donkey that was pulling the cart to be raised off of the ground, legs dangling in mid air.

Your mailbox is like the donkey, and no, it’s not the donkey’s fault.

For more information including tips on effective email management, visit:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~ehelp/email/maintenance.html