Improve Microsoft Outlook Performance – 2 Simple Tips

If your Outlook is slow and unstable, it can seriously affect your productivity and may even lead to increased stress levels when you are not able to get your work done on time.

In this Post, we will provide you 2 simple tips which you can use to keep your Outlook fast and stable.

1. Maintain your Outlook Data (PST) Files

If you started using (or maybe are still using) Outlook before Outlook 2003 then your PST file (Outlook data file) is allowed a maximum size of 2 GB. This may still be true even if you migrated to new versions of Outlook since then.

If your pre-Outlook 2003 data file exceeds 2 GB then Outlook will not be able to open it… there’s also no warning built in to Outlook telling you that you are getting close to this dangerous limit. You might just come to work one morning and find that your Outlook does not open and you have lost all important emails, not forgetting the stress this will lead to and the time and money spent on getting it up and running.

It is for this reason that maintaining your PST files is very important. Here are a few things you can do to keep your PST files small:

1. Delete messages that you don’t need to keep (don’t forget the Sent Items folder)
2. Empty the Deleted Items folder regularly.
3. Compact your PST file occasionally to remove the empty space that remains even after you delete emails. (Click the Compact button shown in the screen above)

2. Disable Addins you don’t need

Running alot of addins (unnecessary addins) can drop the performace of Outlook making it slower. Disabling unnecessary addins is a great way to make your Outlook run faster, more reliably and take less memory.

To disable unnecessary addins:

If you are using Outlook 2000, XP and 2003:

• Start Outlook and go to your Inbox.
• Click Tools -> go to Options
• Click on the Other tab
• Click on the Advanced Options button
• Click on the Com-Addins button. You will see your full list of addins installed.
• Untick the checkboxes for all addins you want to disable
• Click OK
• Restart Outlook

If you are using Outlook 2007:

• Start Outlook and go to your Inbox.
• Click Tools -> Trust Center
• On the screen that appear -> click on add-ins on the left side
• Select Com-Addins on the Manage drop-down -> Click Go. You will see your full list of addins installed.
• Untick the checkboxes for all addins you want to disable
• Click OK
• Restart Outlook

If you are using Outlook 2010:

• Start Outlook and go to your Inbox
• Click on the File tab > Options > Addins
• Select “COM Add-ins” in the Manage drop-down
• Click GO
• Untick the checkboxes for all addins you want to disable
• Click OK
• Restart Outlook

I hope these simple tips will help you keep your Outlook performing faster, more reliably and keep your Outlook data safe.