Auto archiving is a feature that allows you to better manage the space in your inbox or on your email server. It moves items to an archived location for you so that your inbox isn’t clogged. It can also permanently erase items that have reached the end of their useful lives.
Different objects in Outlook have different aging durations. Any Outlook item that has over its aging time is included in the next AutoArchive unless it has been explicitly selected to be omitted. The default aging durations for automatic removal or archiving for each folder are as follows:
- After six months, the “Inbox” folder is archived.
- After six months, the “Drafts” folder is archived.
- After two months, the “Sent Items” folder is archived.
- After two months, the “Deleted Items” section is archived.
- After three months, the “Outbox” folder is archived.
- After six months, the “Calendar” folder is archived.
- After six months, the “Tasks” folder is archived.
- After six months, the “Notes” folder is archived.
- After six months, the “Journal” folder is archived.
This article will walk you through the procedures to enable auto-archiving in your Outlook application. It will be done with Outlook 365, but the methods should work with older versions as well, such as Outlook 2021, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, and so on.
To begin, launch the Outlook application. Then, right-click on the folder for which you want auto-archive to be enabled. You must configure auto-archive depending on a folder, however your inbox folder can also be used.
After right-clicking the folder, select Properties from the drop-down menu that displays.
After clicking on properties, click on the AutoArchive option on InboxProperties.
