Lotus Notes 8.x Tips

This week's post is something a little bit different-- a tip with a request for your feedback!

Archiving is a really great way to reduce the size of your mail file, and to keep things from getting cluttered in your mail. But we know a lot of people never set up archiving because they can't figure it out, and the current help is not sufficient. So this week's FAQ-style tips should help you out with setting up and using archiving :) See the sections below to get things started!

We also ask that if you use the information below, you leave us some feedback on it as well. We are looking to improve Notes help in future releases, and we are exploring different styles of help to do this. The information below is one of the possible new styles of help, and we'd like to know how you like it.  

Please leave us a comment on: what you think about this style of help, if the information here is adequate, and any other feedback you have about it. Thank you and enjoy!



How do I reduce the size of my mail file (to avoid going over my mail quota)?

To reduce the size of your mail file, you have a few options.

Table 1. Ways to reduce the size of your mail file

What do you want to do?	Procedure
Automatically archive unused messages	1.        Open your mail, select Actions > Archive > Settings > Criteria, and either edit existing criteria or create new criteria. This criteria will tell Notes which documents to archive and what to do with them. 2.        After editing or creating, select the desired criteria from the list and click Enable. 3.        If you have access, set an archiving schedule on the Schedule tab. Click the check box next to Schedule archiving, and then choose a time to run archiving. You must leave your computer on at the time you schedule.
Manually archive unused messages	Follow the first two steps for automatically archiving unused messages. During step one, for Selection Criteria, select Selected by user. Make sure to enable this criteria. At any time after this, select the messages you would like to archive, and then select Actions > Archive > Archive selected documents.
Automatically delete unused messages	Follow the steps for automatically archiving unused messages. When you create or edit the archiving criteria, select Just clean up this application without archiving.
Manually delete unused messages	Follow the steps for manually archiving unused messages. When you create or edit the archiving criteria, select Just clean up this application without archiving.
Automatically reduce unused messages	Follow the steps for automatically archiving unused messages. When you create or edit the archiving criteria, select Reduce the size of documents in this application, and make a selection from the corresponding drop-down list.
Manually reduce unused messages	Follow the steps for manually archiving unused messages. When you create or edit the archiving criteria, select Reduce the size of documents in this application, and make a selection from the corresponding drop-down list.

Why are some archiving options greyed-out or "locked"?

When you are editing archive settings, if some options are greyed-out or appear with a lock icon next to them, then your administrator has locked these options and you cannot change them.

If you select any of the options under Actions > Archive, and you get an error message saying that you do not have access to archive, it is because you do not have at least Editor access to that mail file. If it is your own mail file, talk to your administrator. If it is someone else's mail file, talk to that person.




How do I view, delete, or restore archived messages?

What do you want to do?	Procedure
View archived messages	In the navigation panel of your mail, click the plus sign (+) next to Archive.  All archives will be listed.  Click on the archive to open it and view archived messages. Messages will be in the archive folder with the same name as the original folder. Tip: If you chose Reduce the size of documents in this application when you selected the archive criteria, you can open the archived message from mail. Just click the folder that originally contained the message, open the summary, and click Open in archive in the action bar above the message list.
Delete archived messages	Open the archive, and select the message you want to delete. Click the trash icon in the action bar above the message list. The message will be moved to the trash and permanently deleted the next time the trash is emptied. This happens every 48 hours by default. Close the archive when you are finished, to ensure that the trash is emptied on time.
Restore archived messages	Unless you chose Reduce the size of documents in this application when you selected the archive criteria, you can restore any archived document. Just cut the message from a folder in the archive, and paste it to a folder in your mail. Note: Make sure you are pasting into the original application, and not into another folder in the archive!

Julia Brown | 18 June 2009 02:36:45 PM ET | | Comments (35)