TABLE OF CONTENTS

• New Outlook
  • Update offline settings in new Outlook
    • Select which folders to save locally:
    • Select the number of days to save emails locally:
• Classic Outlook

Select from below based on whether you have the New Outlook or Classic Outlook.

If you are unsure which version you have - https://support.microsoft.com/office/what-version-of-outlook-do-i-have-b3a9568c-edb5-42b9-9825-d48d82b2257c

New Outlook

You can use the new Outlook for Windows even when you're not connected to the internet by enabling offline access. When turned on, the new Outlook for Windows saves a copy of your emails, calendar events, and people (previously contacts) to your device, providing access to these items when you're offline and improved performance when you're online.

Your offline settings determine which items are saved to your device and for how long. To set these, see the section below Update offline settings. When you're back online, new Outlook for Windows automatically updates the items that were saved to your device.

Update offline settings in new Outlook

Update these settings to choose which folders to save and how many days of items to save. If you have more than one account, select the account you want the settings to apply to:

Select which folders to save locally:

1. Select Settings > General > Offline > Folders to save.
2. From the dropdown, select Default (Inbox, sent, drafts, archive, deleted and snoozed), Default and favorites (this is set by default), or Default, favorites, and recently used.

Select the number of days to save emails locally:

1. Select Settings > General > Offline > Days of email to save.
2. From the dropdown, select 7, 30 (this is the default value), 90, or 180 days of email to save.

Classic Outlook

Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.

Select an Exchange or Microsoft 365 account, and then click Change.

Under Offline Settings, move the slider to the desired amount of time, such as All, 12 months, 6 months, 3 months, or 1 month. Note: If you're using Outlook 2016, you can also select an amount of time as short as 3 days.

For example, if you move the slider to 3 months, only mail from the past three months will be synchronized to your Offline Outlook Data (.ost) file from the Exchange server. Items older than 3 months reside only in your mailbox on the server. You can change this setting at any time.

Cached Exchange Mode (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-on-cached-exchange-mode-7885af08-9a60-4ec3-850a-e221c1ed0c1c), which downloads a copy of your messages, must be turned on.

If you're using Outlook with an Microsoft 365 account, we recommend you use Cached Exchange Mode.

By default, Outlook configures Exchange and Microsoft 365 accounts to only synchronize 12 months of your email.

Changing the amount of data to synchronize can affect the time it takes Outlook to open as well as the amount of storage space Outlook uses on your computer. If you're running in a virtual desktop environment, we recommend you only synchronize one month of data.