When Outlook reaches its limit

You go to move that email from your main Inbox, to your well-orgainised subfolders, only to be told by Outlook that it can’t be moved as “the OST has reached its limit”.

To make things worse, you’re not receiving any new emails, so you’re missing out on them copy all staff in internal emails regarding people not washing up their coffee cups (again).

There are a number of things that can resolve this problem, below are details of the one which we’ve found to quickly resolve the issue over 80% of the time.

What is actually going on here?

Some versions of Microsoft Outlook have a 50GB limit on the volume of email which can be stored locally on the computer, also referred to as ‘caching’. Basically, the more emails you have, the quicker you will eat up this space and potentially hit that 50GB limit.

What to do once you’ve hit the limit

Again, just for context, there are a number of potential different fixes for this, this is the one we’ve found to resolve the issue over 80% of the time.

So the scenario we most commonly see this is when you have multiple mailboxes in your Outlook You know, when you have not only your own mailbox, but also extra mailboxes such as the sales email mailbox, and Dave’s email mailbox as he’s once again sunning himself in the Maldives. Basically, the more mailboxes you have, that’s more email contributing towards that 50GB limit.

• In Outlook, click on the File Menu and go to Account Settings, and click on Account Setting again.
• Click on your mail email account (it has a tick next to it) and then press the Change button.
• Now click on More Settings.
• Click on the advanced tab.
• Untick the box that says “Download shared folders”
• Click on OK and then close all of the open settings Windows.
• Close Outlook, count to 10 and then open Outlook again.

You will now find your emails are working as normal, and the message about the limit being reached has gone!

You’re welcome!

Gavin Moorhouse is the chief operator at Lucid Computer Solutions, an IT Support business covering Worcester and the surrounding areas. He checks his email once a week.