Many of us made resolutions to lose weight and slim down for the New Year. Well here are four tips to slim down your Outlook Mailbox and speed up your Email.

Tip 1 – Empty the Deleted Items Folder

Every time you delete an e-mail message, it goes into the Deleted Items folder. This folder can grow quickly, so you need to keep cleaning it out.

Since you probably intended to get rid of deleted items in the first place, permanently tossing them out is a painless way to cut the bulk.

You can specify when and how you want your Deleted Items folder tidied up: You can tidy up automatically every time you quit Outlook, or do it manually whenever you like.

Tidy automatically Select a check box, as shown in Figure 1, and your mailbox will be trimmer in no time.

Figure 1 Use the Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting setting to automatically delete messages. (To get to this check box, click Options on the Tools menu and click the Other tab.)

Tidy manually If you prefer to have more control over when items are dumped from Deleted Items, you can empty the Deleted Items folder manually with a simple right-click, as in Figure 2, or you can use the Mailbox Cleanup dialog box. Are you noticing a pattern for this Mailbox Cleanup tool? It’s a great resource for cleaning things up

Figure 2 Right-click Deleted Items and select the Empty “Deleted Items” Folder command on the shortcut menu.

Tip 2 – Save attachments Outside of the Mailbox

Attachments can take up a lot of space. If you don’t need to store them in your mailbox, don’t. Instead, use the Save Attachment command on the File menu and save the attachments to some convenient location on your hard disk. Once you’ve saved the attachment, you can delete the message (if you don’t need it anymore), or you can right-click the attachment icon and click Remove to keep the message but remove the attachment.

Figure 3 Save attachments to a location outside your mailbox by clicking the Save Attachments command on the File menu. This command is available when you have an e-mail message open.

Before you start saving attachments to your hard disk, make sure you have a location in mind that you’ll remember later. For example, if the attachment is a photo, you may want to save it in the My Pictures subfolder of My Documents. Also, when you save the attachment, make sure you give it a name that will help you remember its contents and context.

Tip 3 – Archive the Sent Items Folder Regularly

Keeping the messages you send can be a useful way to track who said what to whom. But, you don’t necessarily need to keep this kind of record in your mailbox—which is where a copy of the messages that you send are stored (Sent Items) unless you archive them.

To specify archive settings for AutoArchive, right-click the Sent Items folder, click Properties, and select the AutoArchive tab.

If you prefer to archive manually, click Archive on the File menu, and scroll to select the Sent Items folder.

Tip 4 – No Response is the Best Response

Don’t respond to junk messages or chain letters. Also, don’t click links within this type of e-mail that say things such as “Click here to remove yourself from this mailing list.” When you respond or click these “remove me” links, you’re letting the sender know that there’s someone at home at your e-mail address, and you’re likely to encourage more of this type of junk e-mail.

Because junk e-mail and other unsolicited e-mail messages (also known as “spam”) are becoming an increasingly big nuisance, Outlook has a number of features specifically designed to help you avoid it. One of the best is the “Junk Email” list. You can add senders to this list by right clicking on the email, scrolling down to the “Junk Email” section and “Adding the Sender to the Blocked Senders List”.

Stay Tuned for more tips to follow!