How to Speed Up Microsoft Outlook

One of the best ways to improve your productivity is to make the programs on your computer run faster. If you use your computer for school or work, then speeding up programs like Microsoft Outlook and Word can have a huge positive impact on your life.

Today, we’re going to teach you some of the best ways to improve the speed of Microsoft Outlook.

Disable unnecessary Outlook addins



Every time Outlook starts up, it loads special applications called ‘addins’ that help the program communicate with certain hardware on your PC. The problem is that most of these addins are unnecessary for the average user, which means that you can safely disable them in order to speed up your PC.

To disable these addins, click on ‘File’ at the top of Outlook. Then, click on ‘Options’. On the left side of the options window there will be a pane called ‘Addins’.

Navigate to ‘Com Addins’ and then press ‘Go’.

There should be several boxes checked by default. Disable all of them except for Windows Search Email Indexer and then press OK to apply these changes.

Use a PST or OST splitter


Splitting your PST or OST file into smaller parts is an easy way to reduce the time it takes for Outlook to start up. It also helps you get around annoying issues like the PST file size limit error and other problems related to a full or corrupt PST.


What are the PST and OST files, you might ask? Basically, they store all of the personal information that Outlook needs to run every day, including your emails, attachments, calendar entries, and contact data. Unfortunately, these files can develop serious problems over time, including the infamous 2GB size limit error, among other things.


Trying to solve these problems on your own can be difficult, and it requires quite a bit of technical know-how. To make your life easier, some software companies have created PST/OST splitters that break the file down into smaller parts. You can separate these parts based on certain categories. You may want to have separate folders for your personal and work emails, for example.


Stop using cache mode


Outlook uses something called cache mode by default. This is useful for people who have an unreliable internet connection. However, for the rest of us, cache mode is mostly unnecessary. Disabling it can speed up Outlook response times, as well as reduce the size of the OST file that we talked about above.


Cache mode can be disabled by clicking on ‘File’ and then ‘Account Settings’. On the ‘Email’ tab, select your Exchange account and then hit ‘Change’. A Microsoft Exchange server window should pop up. On this window, de-select the ‘Use Cached Exchange Mode’ check box.


Customize AutoArchive


One of the most overlooked features in Outlook is the ability to AutoArchive your emails. Instead of manually sorting each message into a specific folder (or deleting them), you can set AutoArchive to automatically organize your old emails. This effectively splits the PST file down into smaller parts, which not only helps you stay organized, but also makes the program load faster.

Customization options for AutoArchive can be found under the ‘Folder’ menu at the top of your Outlook window.

Author Bio:

Michael Hanson

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is an established website dedicated to solving user’s problems with Microsoft Outlook. Their expertise is in data recovery and troubleshooting Outlook errors including how to Convert OST to PST and data corruption.