How to optimize and make Outlook faster
Why to optimize Outlook?
As you may noticed, Microsoft Outlook tends to respond slower to your
commands, as time goes by over your Outlook installation. We use to compare
Microsoft Outlook with Microsoft Windows: they both needs constant tweaking
and optimization, unless you are willing to reformat your disk and to
reinstall Windows. But on the Outlook case, reinstalling it can bring lots of
headaches and critical data may get lost during the process.
This article tries to explain you how to make Outlook faster and better,
without reinstalling it. The article applies to the following Outlook
symptoms:
• It takes several minutes for Outlook to start;
• You constantly get Outlook crashes or error messages;
• It takes a lot of time for Outlook to switch folders or to view email
content;
• Outlook dies or it opens slowly, after it was minimized to the Windows
systray;
• Outlook doesn't respond to your commands or its responses are erratic.
How to make Outlook run faster
First of all, you need to understand that Outlook is a database driven
Windows product: as more information you add to it, as more time it needs to
respond to your commands. Moreover, the Outlook engine was designed during
the Windows 95 days, but for compatibility reasons its database engine
remained almost the same until today. On top of this system, with every new
Outlook version Microsoft added several layers of features, such as Tasks,
the Journal, the Business Contacts Manager and so on.
So, the key for optimizing Outlook is: how can I take the stress out of
Outlook and make it to handle less information? Remember the first day when
you started Outlook? It loaded almost instantly and it was always promptly
responding to your commands. Well, a lot has changed since that day: you now
have multiple Outlook email accounts to handle, tons of emails spreaded in
several mail folders, dozens of Outlook contacts, maybe even some cool addins
or addons for Outlook.
Here is a to-do list for making Outlook to load and run faster:
• Always archive your incoming emails: there is no need to keep thousands
of emails in your active mail box. You can just setup Outlook so it
automatically move older emails to an archive folder. This way, when starting
Outlook or when switching folders, the program doesn't have to load a huge
list of emails. To archive a folder, simply right click on it, select its
Properties, then go to the AutoArchive tab to configure your archiving
settings.
• Make sure the default folder that is displayed when Outlook starts is not
too crowded with emails. Try to move emails away from the default starting
folder to archive folders or to other sub-folders. For example, if you
receive many emails from a contact, you can define a rule so all those emails
are automatically moved into a specific folder. As less items Outlook has to
display at startup, as faster it shall load.
• Pay a lot of attention to 3rd party addins or addons. While they can
bring benefits for your workflow, they surely add to the Outlook lag. Keep
only the addins that you know you are using on regular basis: although you
may not use an installed addin, it still consumes Outlook resources simply by
"being there". You can see a list of your currently installed addins by the
Tools menu -> Options -> Other -> Advanced Options -> Add-in Manager. You may
also want to try our free Outlook Add-in Utility which is delivered with
Bells & Whistles for Outlook.
• If you use Outlook with a slow Internet connection to connect to a
mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange server, you can improve response time by
minimizing how much information Outlook transfers over the connection and how
often these transfers occur. The best way to accomplish this is by working
offline instead of online. As an alternative, you can configure Outlook to
download only the email headers of incoming emails.
• On a busy environment, Outlook needs to handle large mailbox files (PST
files). You may want to defragment the disk partition on which your PST file
is located. Since new information (emails or else) is continuously added by
Outlook to your personal folders file, the PST file tends to become
fragmented very quickly. As a result, it is a good idea to schedule, at least
weekly, a disk defragmentation for the partition where the PST file is
stored. If your defrag tool allows it, you should move the PST file at the
beginning disk sectors of your disk partition: this way will hardware will
require less time to access & read the PST file.
• Unless it deals with critical errors, Outlook doesn't always report less
important errors. By running the "Detect and Repair" function (from the
Outlook Help menu) on regular basis, you rest assured that nothing bad is
happening in the background.
• Avoid switching tasks (ALT + TAB) while the main Outlook window is
maximized. If you need to switch to a different application, make sure you
firstly minimize Outlook, then go to the other program. Otherwise, it may end
up using so much memory that it stops responding.
• The default Outlook settings makes it work with the Windows Instant
Messenger as often as possible. As a result, switching between emails or
folders can be very slow, as the Windows Messenger needs to load its
information, too. You can disable the use of Windows Messenger for Outlook
from the Tools menu, under Options -> Other -> Person Names (unmark the
related checkboxes).
• Microsoft Office is delivered with speech and handwriting recognition
features. Outlook also loads them and they increase the memory usage of
Outlook. Here is a Microsoft article explaining how to turn off these
features.
• If you use to work on the same Windows session for days and if you need
to keep Outlook up and running all the time, try closing & restarting Outlook
at least daily. Especially due to 3rd party addins, Outlook can require more
and more memory resources if you keep it open for a longer period of time.
If all the above tips didn't make any difference and your Outlook is still
running slow, maybe the only option is to backup your Outlook personal files,
say a prayer and reinstall everything!
