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Outlook - Archiving of old messages

Outlook - Archiving of old messages

Introduction


NIDA uses Microsoft Outlook for email communication, and the related Outlook accounts are backed up to ensure access should issues arise, and for continuity reasons.
Across the number of accounts NIDA uses and the size of some email attachments, this results in increasingly large amounts of data.

This increases the time it takes to complete these backups.
Additionally, for staff and students who have been at NIDA for a longer time, their total email storage may start reaching the per-user limit of 1 terabyte.

For these reasons, in December 2025 IT planned to set up auto archiving of old emails. This will move older emails to a second inbox that you can access from your regular Outlook account.

This does mean though that you may not see older emails unless you search across both your main and archive inboxes.

Current criteria used to determine what is archived

  • ARCHIVED: Any email with a Sent date older than 2 years from today

  • NOT ARCHIVED: Contacts, tasks and calendar entries

Message shown when messages have been moved

Outlook does not provide a specific message to indicate that your content has been archived. So it may appear that you have no content when in fact you do.

Here are the messages you see:

  • Classic client (ie Outlook installed on your device or computer)

    • Original version

      image-20251204-001935.png



    • New version

image-20251204-002122.png



  • Outlook web access (ie Outlook as a website you reach via your browser)
    This looks the same as for the New version of the Classic client (see screenshot above)

Where to find the archive inbox

When viewing the Email section of your Outlook account, any new archive inbox will generally be found at the bottom of the left hand pane.

You can tell which account an inbox relates to because the email address it relates to is listed.)

  • Classic client

    • Original version

      image-20251204-003104.png



    • New version

      image-20251204-010320.png



  • Outlook web access

    image-20251204-003618.png




Searching for messages across main and archive inboxes

To avoid being confused by not finding older emails in your main inbox, you can ensure you search using the right options.


  • Classic client

    • Original version

      If you’re searching just for email content, when using the quick search option at the top of the screen make sure you select ‘All Mailboxes’ rather than just ‘Current Mailbox’.


      image-20251204-004029.png



      You can make the ‘All Mailboxes’ the standard search option by changing this in the settings: click on the File menu at top left

      image-20251204-015804.png


      click Options at the bottom left

      image-20251204-015858.png


      then under Search, click ‘All Mailboxes’ then click OK

      image-20251204-020006.png




    • New version

      As at August 2025, searching across multiple inboxes is apparently not available in the New version:

      image-20251204-011309.png


      Workarounds include
      - selecting each inbox and doing the search separately in each
      - switching back to the Original version and using the ‘All mailboxes’ option mentioned above; you can switch back using the toggle at the top right of the New version screen

      image-20251204-011017.png



  • Outlook web access
    It seems searching across multiple inboxes is also not available for Outlook web access. See above for workarounds.


Need support?

If you have questions or need help, you can raise an IT Helpdesk ticket by emailing help.it@nida.edu.au