Email is an essential part of our work at Virginia Western, but over time our Outlook mailboxes can become crowded with old announcements, newsletters, large attachments, deleted messages, and other information we no longer need.

A few minutes of regular cleanup can make Outlook easier to manage while also reducing unnecessary storage on the college’s email systems.

Take Five Minutes to Tidy Up

A little routine housekeeping can go a long way:

• Empty Deleted Items and Junk Email. Messages in these folders can continue taking up mailbox space until they are removed.
• Delete what you no longer need. Old newsletters, automated notifications, duplicate conversations, expired reminders, and outdated announcements are great places to start.
• Watch large attachments. When appropriate, save files you need to an approved location such as OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, or your department’s file storage. Then consider whether you still need the original email.
• Make cleanup a habit. Spending just a few minutes periodically managing your mailbox is much easier than tackling years of accumulated email at once.

Need an Older Email? Barracuda Can Help!

Worried that you might need an old message later? Virginia Western provides the Barracuda Cloud Archiving Service, which gives employees another way to search for older archived email.

Barracuda lets you search using criteria such as sender, recipient, subject, message content, and attachment name. That means you have a valuable resource for finding older archived messages when you need them.

Need Help? Bookmark These VWCC Resources

Tame the Inbox Beast: Email Management
Practical tips for cleaning up Outlook, managing attachments, and developing good email-management habits.

Faculty & Staff Email
VWCC’s main resource for faculty and staff email, including Outlook, webmail, email security, Barracuda Archive, and other email assistance.

Barracuda Online Email Search
Step-by-step instructions for accessing Barracuda and searching your archived email.

Take Five This Week!

Set aside five minutes this week to tidy up your Outlook mailbox. Delete what you no longer need, clear out Deleted Items and Junk Email, and take a look at those large attachments.

Your inbox, and your friendly neighborhood IET team, will thank you!