How to Archive IMAP Emails in Outlook? Learn Here

Archive IMAP Emails in Outlook to free up space in the mailbox, increase the speed of the mailbox, and store old emails in safe locations without erasing them.

If you have an IMAP email account in Microsoft Outlook, your email account will grow exponentially over time. Continuously syncing your account means that every email sent or received via your IMAP email account remains on the mail server forever.

As your mailbox gets larger, it will perform slower than it did originally, and it becomes more challenging to manage your daily email.

Many users don’t want to delete their old emails because there may still be a reason for them to keep them. However, for many of them, keeping years of old emails in their inbox is not very practical.

That is why archiving IMAP emails in Outlook should be considered an important procedure.

The process to archive IMAP emails in Outlook allows you to move your older IMAP emails out of your primary mailbox, and still have access to them within Outlook. This will help reduce the load on your inbox, increase the speed of Outlook, and help you stay organized while retaining your active IMAP account.

This guide outlines manual method available to archive IMAP email in Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2021 on Mac and Windows OS. It also identifies the limitations of this manual solution and explains why many users choose to use a professional IMAP to Outlook archiving solution instead for more control.

Why Do Users Need to Archive IMAP Emails in Outlook?

Outlook can have issues when connected to an IMAP mailbox that has multiple emails, as Outlook continuously syncs thousands of emails and this can lead to problems such as:

• Slow startup of Outlook
• Delays in opening folders
• Slow search results
• Reaching the maximum limit on IMAP mailboxes

If you archive IMAP emails in Outlook, it can help you mitigate these types of issues by keeping older messages stored but not synced during active sync and preserving access to items when they are required.

How IMAP Accounts Work in Outlook

With IMAP, emails are synced on every device using the IMAP account in Outlook so that:

• The email will always remain on the mail server.
• Outlook will have a synchronized version of that email.
• Any action that happens to that email will automatically be sent to the server.

Since old emails do not actually go away from the mailbox until you delete them, over time your mailbox will grow in size and impact Outlook’s performance. However, the process to archive IMAP emails in Outlook helps you separate duplicated messages from old IMAP-synced messages.

What Archiving Means in Outlook

• When you archive IMAP emails in Outlook, it does not delete them Instead:
• You create an Archived data file (PST) that contains all the selected emails.
• Your archived PST file is located only on your computer (not with your email provider).
• After an email is archived, it is removed from the IMAP mailbox you are currently using.
• Your archived IMAP emails can still be viewed in Outlook but will no longer synchronize with your mail server, which helps reduce the size of your mailbox.

How to Archive IMAP Emails in Outlook?

The only reliable and supported method to archive IMAP in Outlook is via the built-in Archive feature in Outlook.

1. Archive IMAP Email in Outlook Using Built-In Tool

Use the following steps to archive IMAP emails in Outlook using Outlook’s Archive feature:

1. Start Microsoft Outlook.
2. Under File click Tools then Clean Up Old Items (Archive).
3. Select Archive this folder and all subfolders.
4. Choose the IMAP folder to archive.
5. Determine the date (any emails older than this date will be archived).
6. Select a location to save the Archive PST file.
7. Click OK to archive IMAP emails in Outlook.

When archiving is complete, the archived emails will be placed in a local PST file that appears as an Archive folder in Outlook.

Limitations of Outlook’s Built-in Archive Method

• Poor performance with large mailboxes.
• PST files can get corrupted and cause data loss.
• Struggling to archive multiple IMAP Account emails in Outlook at once.
• Outlook can freeze when creating archives.
• Archived IMAP email in Outlook is created with one Profile.
• Not suitable for long-term email storage.

2. Archiving IMAP Emails in Outlook Using Drag-and-Drop

Some Outlook users who utilize this manual approach by creating their own local PST files and then transferring messages manually from IMAP folders to those PST files, generally refer to drag-and-drop method to archive IMAP emails in Outlook.

Using this method, a user will:

1. Open a new Outlook data file (PST) file.
2. Open their IMAP folder(s) in Outlook.
3. Select the email and the folder to be moved.
4. Drag them into their PST files.

Although this may appear to be an efficient way to archive IMAP email in Outlook. However, this is not a productive long-term solution, particularly if you need to move a large number of emails!

Limitations of Drag-and-Drop

• It’s not a validated or optimal process.
• Causes missing or partial movement of emails.
• Can’t filter by dates or do advanced filtering
• Repetitive process for moving large amounts of email
• Outlook can crash or stop responding.
• High chances of making mistakes in moving emails
• Not efficient for users dealing with bulk emails or repeated archives.

Why Should Users Use a Tool Instead of Manual Archiving?

Many users use IMAP to Outlook archiving tool instead of using Outlook’s manual way to archive IMAP emails in Outlook because of these advantages:

• More Reliable Data Safety
  When you manually archive IMAP in Outlook, your emails are stored in a PST file that is dependent on your Outlook Profile and how your computer behaves. Using tool creates a separate archive file that is easier to manage and stable and less likely to lose data due to corruption or user error.
• No Dependency on Outlook Synchronization
  Outlook needs to be active and available to manually archive IMAP emails in Outlook. If you have a large IMAP mailbox, Outlook may hang while you’re archiving. With the tool, you can archive your emails without doing so through Outlook, which eliminates the problems related to archiving with a large mailbox.
• Faster and More Reliable Archiving for Large IMAP Mailboxes
  When you manually archive multiple IMAP emails in Outlook, it can take hours or longer, or even fail. You might lose your connection and not get your emails finished archiving. The IMAP to Outlook archiving tool is designed specifically for bulk email processing and, therefore, can very reliably archive your emails quickly and easily.
• More Sophisticated Filtering Options
  With this tool, you can filter your emails during the process to archive IMAP emails in Outlook based on the following criteria:
  • Date range
  • Specific folder
  • Sender and Subject
  • Presence of Attachments
    None of these filtering options are available with Outlook’s Manual Archive feature
• Designed for Long-Term Preservation of Emails
  If users require that archived emails be kept for compliance, reference, or future use, an IMAP to Outlook archiving solution is a more secure method than using manual archiving (a method intended for temporary organization).

What Happens After You Archive IMAP Emails

• If you archive IMAP emails in Outlook, then messages will be removed from the active IMAP mailbox.
• Messages will no longer sync with the mail server.
• Archived messages will still be available to you using the .PST file.
• You will have increased Outlook performance due to decreased sync activities.
• This results in a faster, more streamlined work environment.

When a Professional Solution Makes More Sense

A professional IMAP to Outlook archiving tool is recommended to archive IMAP emails in Outlook:

• Have IMAP mailboxes that are huge
• Have long-term needs for retaining email
• Provides better protection to archive IMAP emails in Outlook.
• Use more than one email account
• Want to keep your Outlook working properly

Using a product that takes care of the entire process to archive IMAP email in Outlook provides a more reliable and efficient way.

Final Clarity

Although the manual way to archive IMAP emails in Outlook may be beneficial for minimal, low-volume mailbox cleaning. Therefore a professional IMAP to Outlook archiving solution is the preferred choice for long-term, dependable, large-scale and error free solution.