You are at this page because you have received an email from Rick Hawkes the Systems Administrator advising you that your mailbox has grown too large.
The limit for a user is approximately 75 megs, so we allow enough space for you to hold your email for a couple of days before downloading it to your local mail program.
The reason that the limit is so small is that when people's mailboxes get too large, it severely impacts server performance for everyone. All of your mail is in one file on the server, and whenever an email arrives or is deleted, the entire file is rewritten. If the file is relatively small, then it happens quickly, but if it's too large, then it takes a longer time to perform this action.
If you need a bit more space, let us know. We're reasonable. But if you need hundreds of megs of mailbox space, then there are other good options, including Google mail. Let us know and we can let you know your options.
Most often we have found that if someone's mailbox is too large, it's totally innocent. The setting most often to blame is where you have opted to leave messages on the server. This section will show you where to find this setting and how to turn it off.
You may think it's a good idea to leave your email on the server, but it is not. In addition to the performance degradation that this causes, we do not back up our mail files, so that if disaster hits and your mail is gone, it's gone forever. The best plan is for you to download the mail to your computer and perform backups regularly. There is no substitute for a good backup plan.
The only time that leaving messages on the server for a SHORT TIME makes sense is if you need to save your messages on two different computers, for example, one at home and one at the office. When you download mail to one of the machines it will stay on the server and you can download it with the other machine. In this case, it would be acceptable to save messages on the server for a short time. Three days should be plenty.
We have created some individual pages with pictures and text describing how to turn off this setting. Please click on the link below that corresponds to your mail program.
If your mail program is not here, and you do not know where to find this setting, please email us and let us know what program you are using and we will help you find out how to do it.
Microsoft Outlook 2010
Microsoft Outlook 2007
Microsoft Outlook 2003
Microsoft Live Mail
Microsoft Outlook Express