Improving Outlook speed and performance
If Outlook is running slowly, you can change how long emails are available offline to speed it up. Regularly cleaning out your inbox will also improve performance.
Cached exchange mode
Cached exchange mode saves a copy of your mailbox on your computer. So, instead of waiting for UQ's mail servers to send data to your machine, you can access data locally from your device.
This mode speeds up performance because it bypasses the mail server (and several other systems), which can be slow to send and receive data. The mailbox copied to your computer is still frequently synced with the mail server, so all your emails are backed up and kept safe.
Cached exchange mode is enabled by default for all UQ accounts. This ensures all emails sent and received in the past year are available offline. To improve Outlook performance, you can adjust this time period.
Change how long emails are available offline
These instructions are for Windows 10:
- Open Outlook.
- Go to the blue 'File' tab and select 'Account Settings' then 'Account Settings'.
- Select your email address, then click the 'Change' button.
- Under 'Offline Settings', move the slider to change the time period. The shorter the time period, the quicker Outlook will perform.
- Click 'Next'.
- An alert will advise you to quit and restart Outlook. Click 'OK', then 'Finish'.
- Close and restart Outlook.
You should save 1 year of your personal mailbox and any shared email accounts. This will keep the mailbox on your computer manageable in size.
Clean out your inbox
If you're hanging on to emails from years gone by, you can export and save them. Once your old emails have been exported, you can delete them out of your inbox.
Deleting old mail will keep your inbox light and trim, and make it easier for the mail server to manage. You'll still have a record of your old emails in the exported file.