365 business email : when is email mbx too big/unusable

Forums › IT Pro and developers › 365 business email : when is email mbx too big/unusable

1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#222444 11-Aug-2017 10:16

Hi There

Business 365 email
At what stage does the email mailbox size become simply too big to be workable , and start causing issues

Ive seen some say 10Gb
The issue Im seeing, with users on DSL (no fibre) , with 20Gb of 365 cloud stored email , the sync starts to get unworkable
Fix an issue with the sync, then wait days (yes days) for it all to sync/fully download. In the meantime the are issues with speed & searches
Then wait till the next sync fail & start again.

So at what size do you say, too much email, archive it out ?
Especially on (slow) ADSL

Cheers

Dynamic

3868 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1845057 11-Aug-2017 11:20

Use of Outlook 2013 or 2016 means you can tell Outlook to sync only the last week/fortnight/month/3 months/6 months/year/2 years/all of email. When you SEARCH within Outlook, the search feature will show you results from both the locally cached storage AND the server storage. I consider myself an email hoarder, but I only sync 6 months worth of email to my main computers, and the last fortnight to secondary computers.

Separately, for clients with 3000+ messages in a folder I strongly push them to create year folders under their main folders (e.g. Sent 2017, Sent 2016, Sent 2015) as I have seen plenty of recommendations over the years to keep under 3000 or 5000 messages per folder, and seen positive reliability changes from doing so.

Ultimately, archiving becomes more of a headache in my opinion. You have separate storage that is likely tied to only one computer, and if your user decides to drag more messages into that Archive and something goes wrong, or that computer does and there is no recent backup copy, you know who they'll blame!

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

Referral links to services I use, really like, and may be rewarded if you sign up:
PocketSmith for budgeting and personal finance management. A great Kiwi company.

kiwicam

136 posts

Master Geek

#1845101 11-Aug-2017 12:25

What @Dynamic said basically.

The limitations tend to come down to search and the ost file (which is used by search). Once the ost gets to about 10GB you do start to run into problems. The size of the mailbox isn't much of an issue these days if you manage the synchronisation as @Dynamic suggested.

Archiving as @Dynamic discussed it, I completely agree - assuming those issues are based to using PST archiving within Outlook. If you have an online archive (licensed if you want unlimited storage but included if you keep the total under 50GB) it does work a lot better. I actively discourage using PST based archiving but online archiving is recommended for us email hoarders.

Paul1977

5052 posts

Uber Geek

#1847419 16-Aug-2017 10:36

Dynamic:

Separately, for clients with 3000+ messages in a folder I strongly push them to create year folders under their main folders (e.g. Sent 2017, Sent 2016, Sent 2015) as I have seen plenty of recommendations over the years to keep under 3000 or 5000 messages per folder, and seen positive reliability changes from doing so.

Ultimately, archiving becomes more of a headache in my opinion. You have separate storage that is likely tied to only one computer, and if your user decides to drag more messages into that Archive and something goes wrong, or that computer does and there is no recent backup copy, you know who they'll blame!

@Dynamic in your experience does it make a difference if the yearly folders are completely separate (i.e. "Sent 2016" in the root of the mailbox), or does it work just as well if they are subfolders (i.e. "Sent Items\2016")?

Dynamic

3868 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1847496 16-Aug-2017 12:24

@Paul1977 subfolders seems to be just fine, and your example Sent Items\2016 is close to how I do it. I call the subfolder Sent 2016 so if you are searching and the search results only show the folder name and not the hierarchy then you still know where to look.

| - Inbox

| | - Inbox 2016

| | - Inbox 2015

| | - Inbox 2014

| - Sent Items

| - Sent 2016

| - Sent 2015

| - Sent 2014

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

Referral links to services I use, really like, and may be rewarded if you sign up:
PocketSmith for budgeting and personal finance management. A great Kiwi company.

plas

455 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1847497 16-Aug-2017 12:25

I believe our largest user has a 70GB mailbox in 365, Ive not heard of them having issues.

Paul1977

5052 posts

Uber Geek

#1847508 16-Aug-2017 12:35

Dynamic:

@Paul1977 subfolders seems to be just fine, and your example Sent Items\2016 is close to how I do it. I call the subfolder Sent 2016 so if you are searching and the search results only show the folder name and not the hierarchy then you still know where to look.

|

| - Inbox

| | - Inbox 2016

| | - Inbox 2015

| | - Inbox 2014

|

| - Sent Items

| - Sent 2016

| - Sent 2015

| - Sent 2014

Thanks for that, that's a good idea re naming the folders to be more easily searchable.