Outlook 2003 not archiving correctly

[K Yero]

I have been using the archiving feature in Outlook 2003 for years now and our
company moved from a server and application firm to our internal IT
department in February. Since then I have not been able to archive my Outlook
folders. I use the same settings as before, everything older than 5 months
get archived, but it doesn't archive the old stuff in Outlook. I still have
messages from back in 2008 that have not been archived. The system goes
through the motions of doing the archive, but again I look in my folders and
there the old messages are saying hello we're still here. Can anyone tell me
what might be wrong?

 

[K. Orland]

Was your archive PST file created with Outlook 2003 or brought forward from
an older version of Outlook?

 

[K Yero]

Outlook 2003 always. I tried moving my PST file to another folder and then
creating a new PST file doing a fresh archive, but it still did the same
thing. My old messages are still in Outlook.

 

[K. Orland]

Is there any error message associated with this problem?

 

[K Yero]

No. That is why I don't understand what is happening. I have checked and
rechecked my archive settings as well, and everything seems to be correct.

 

[K. Orland]

Something is apparently awry!

If you open in Outlook in safe mode, does this behaviour continue?

Start > Run > outlook.exe /safe

 

[Roady [MVP]]

AutoArchive works on the modified date and not the received or sent date. I
bet that the method of migrating they used changed the modified to a date in
February which is not longer than 5 month ago, so nothing will get archived
yet.

 

[K Yero]

Thanks to everyone that helped me on this one.

Roady - It worked. I had to go all the way to March 1st to get anything to
happen. It's still going...........

 

[Philip Herlihy]

I have been using the archiving feature in Outlook 2003 for years now and our
company moved from a server and application firm to our internal IT
department in February. Since then I have not been able to archive my Outlook
folders. I use the same settings as before, everything older than 5 months
get archived, but it doesn't archive the old stuff in Outlook. I still have
messages from back in 2008 that have not been archived. The system goes
through the motions of doing the archive, but again I look in my folders and
there the old messages are saying hello we're still here. Can anyone tell me
what might be wrong?

Bizarrely, Outlook picks items for archiving not by the Sent or Received
date but by some internal property which is related to the age of the
file (I don't have more detail). I've found that the "ArchiveAssist"
product from http://www.cardiffsoft.com/ can fix this, producing the
expected result when AutoArchive is next run. Well worth the few bucks
involved, and there is a (limited) free version available too. Of
course, you should back up your data file before running anything like
this, but I had no problems.

I've assumed your data files are PSTs - there is no mention of Exchange
Server in the utility's documentation (that I saw).

Phil, London

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome!

Thanks to everyone that helped me on this one.

Roady - It worked. I had to go all the way to March 1st to get anything to
happen. It's still going...........

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Bizarrely, Outlook picks items for archiving not by the Sent or Received

date but by some internal property which is related to the age of the file
(I don't have more detail).

It uses the "modified date" which is a visible property of the email (or any
other item). I wouldn't call it "bizarrely" that this date is being used.
After all, you've still been working with the item shorter than your
configured AutoArchive period, so you really don't want it to be
AutoArchived, do you? You only want to archive items that have been inactive
for that period of time.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

It uses the "modified date" which is a visible property of the email (or
any other item). I wouldn't call it "bizarrely" that this date is being
used. After all, you've still been working with the item shorter than
your configured AutoArchive period, so you really don't want it to be
AutoArchived, do you? You only want to archive items that have been
inactive for that period of time.

I see that. However, the only way I know to view the "Modified" date is
to use the Field Chooser, and that _doesn't_ include "Modified" in
"Frequently Used Fields". I rest my case...



Phil

PS - I'd be interested to know which operations do, and don't, update
the "Modified" field of a message.