Tech tip: Tips for freeing up storage space in UCS

By: Ryan T Johnson

image of a black mailbox with a flag that says "you've got way too much mail"

With the migration to Office 365 coming soon, Penn State is asking everyone to clean-up their  mail and make the migration more efficient.

Below are some helpful tips to get you started:

  • You can select multiple messages at a time by holding down the CTRL key on your keyboard while clicking on messages with your mouse. Please note: on a Mac, this is the Command key, instead of CTRL. After selecting multiple messages, you can delete them (or move them to another folder).
  • You can select a whole range of messages at a time by clicking on one message, then holding the SHIFT key on your keyboard and clicking a second message. By doing this the first message, the second message, and all in between will be highlighted. You can then delete or file away these marked messages.
    • Work on clearing out your oldest messages first. To do this:
      1. Go into a folder you wish to work on
      2. Click on the ‘Received’ column heading (above the date/times of the messages) to sort that folder in reverse order – oldest first.
      3. You can then delete or file away your oldest messages first – as opposed to the more recent mail which you may be more likely to need.
      4. When finished, you can click on the Received column heading again to switch back to the normal sort order (newest messages first).
  • Download and Remove attachments from your email messages. Attachments take up a lot of space in UCS. If you can remove the email entirely, do so. If you want to keep the email, simply download the attachment to your computer and then remove the attachment to clear up space while retaining the email.
  • Keep in mind– messages in the trash folder count towards your quota as well. When deleting messages normally, they are moved to the trash. Messages in the trash folder are not automatically deleted like the junk folder every 30 days. You should periodically empty the trash to save space( which you can do by right-clicking on the trash folder and choosing empty trash).
  • Review your Sent folder and delete some or all of your email from this location as well.