As our inboxes get inundated with a never-ending stream of emails, it's essential to keep them organized and tidy.
One way to do this is by using Outlook's retention policies to automatically mark emails for deletion.
Retention policies allow you to define how long to keep items in your mailbox before they are permanently deleted or moved to an archive.
In this blog post, we'll guide you through the process of creating a retention policy in Outlook to automatically delete unwanted emails.
Step 1: Define your retention policy
The first step is to define your retention policy.
To do this, you'll need to decide how long to keep items in your mailbox before they are deleted.
You can choose to delete items older than a certain number of days, weeks, months, or years.
You can also choose to delete items based on their age at the time they were moved to a particular folder.
Step 2: Create a retention tag
The next step is to create a retention tag.
Retention tags are used to apply retention policies to items in your mailbox. To create a retention tag, follow these steps:
In Outlook, go to File > Options > Advanced.
Under the AutoArchive section, click on the AutoArchive Settings button.
In the AutoArchive dialog box, click on the Retention Policy tab.
Click on the New button to create a new retention tag.
In the Retention Tag dialog box, give your retention tag a name.
Select the type of items you want to apply the retention policy to (e.g., emails).
Choose how long you want to keep the items before they are deleted.
Click OK to save your retention tag.
Step 3: Create a retention policy
The next step is to create a retention policy.
Retention policies are used to apply retention tags to items in your mailbox. To create a retention policy, follow these steps:
In Outlook, go to File > Options > Advanced.
Under the AutoArchive section, click on the AutoArchive Settings button.
In the AutoArchive dialog box, click on the Retention Policy tab.
Click on the New button to create a new retention policy.
In the Retention Policy dialog box, give your retention policy a name.
Add the retention tags you created in step 2 to your retention policy.
Choose whether you want to apply the retention policy to all items in your mailbox or to specific folders.
Choose how often you want Outlook to run the retention policy.
Click OK to save your retention policy.
Step 4: Apply the retention policy
The final step is to apply the retention policy to your mailbox.
To do this, follow these steps:
In Outlook, go to File > Options > Advanced.
Under the AutoArchive section, click on the AutoArchive Settings button.
In the AutoArchive dialog box, click on the Retention Policy tab.
Select the retention policy you created in step 3 from the drop-down list.
Click OK to apply the retention policy to your mailbox.
That's it! Now Outlook will automatically mark emails for deletion based on your retention policy.
It's important to note that retention policies can only be applied to items in your primary mailbox, not to items in archive mailboxes or personal folders (.pst files).
Also, retention policies only apply to items that are older than the retention period you set, so items that are still within the retention period will not be affected.
Ashwani
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