How to Archive Old Emails in Outlook for Windows
Overview
This article explains how to archive older emails in Microsoft Outlook on a Windows PC and save them to a local Outlook data file on your computer.
Archiving can help reduce the storage used by your email account by moving older emails from the mail server to a data file stored locally on your PC.
Important: Archived emails are stored locally on your computer and may no longer be available from other devices or through webmail.
Instructions
1. Open Outlook
Open Microsoft Outlook on your Windows PC.
2. Open the Archive Tool
- Click File in the top-left corner of Outlook.
- Click Tools.
- Select Clean Up Old Items… from the drop-down menu.
3. Configure the Archive Settings
In the Archive window:
- Select Archive this folder and all subfolders.
- Select Inbox, or choose a specific folder if you only want to archive that folder.
- Under Archive items older than, select the date up to which you want emails archived.
- Check the location shown under Archive file.
- Click OK to begin archiving.
4. Access Your Archived Emails
Once the archive has been created, Outlook will display an Archives section alongside your normal mailbox.
Your archived folders and emails can be accessed from this section.
Outlook will continue processing the selected emails and save them to an Outlook data file (.pst) stored locally on your computer.
Archiving More Emails Later
If you need to archive newer emails at a later date, simply repeat the process above and change the Archive items older than date.
Outlook can continue using the same archive data file.
Important – Back Up Your Archive
Archived emails are stored locally on your computer. If your computer or hard drive fails and you do not have a backup, your archived emails could be permanently lost.
We strongly recommend maintaining a current backup of your Outlook Archive data file (.pst).
By default, Outlook data files are commonly stored in the Outlook Files folder within your Windows Documents folder:
Documents → Outlook Files
The exact location can vary depending on your version of Outlook and its configuration.