Deleting large Calendar items

Looking at the folder size of my Calendar, I noticed that it takes up a lot of space. This is very well possible since I often store attachments with my Calendar items or receive Meeting invitations with attachments.

Now I’m looking for a way to locate the largest items and clean up their attachments.
Which method would be most effective?

Looking at the folder size of my Calendar, I noticed that it takes up a lot of space. This is very well possible since I often store attachments with my Calendar items or receive Meeting invitations with attachments.

Now I’m looking for a way to locate the largest items and clean up their attachments.
Which method would be most effective?

The default “Day/Week/Month view is not very helpful to analyze this indeed. A good approach would be to change your view to the All Appointments view, add the Size column and then sort by size.

Outlook 2007 and previous
In Outlook 2007 and previous you can do this in the following way;

  1. Change your view to the All Appointments view via;
    View-> Current View-> All Appointments
  2. Open the Customize View dialog via;
    View-> Current View-> Customize Current View…
  3. Press the Fields… button.
  4. Set the “Select available fields from:” to;
    All Appointment fields
  5. In the left columns select: Size
  6. Press the “Add->” button.
  7. Press OK and then OK again to return to your Calendar.
  8. Press the added “Size” columns to sort by size.

Once done, you can switch back to the Day/Week/Month view via;
View-> Current View-> Day/Week/Month

Outlook 2010
In Outlook 2010 things are a bit different;

  1. Select the View tab.
  2. Press Change View.
  3. From the gallery that pops-up choose: List
  4. Press the Add Columns button.
  5. Set the “Select available fields from:” to;
    All Appointment fields
  6. In the left columns select: Size
  7. Press the “Add->” button.
  8. Press OK to return to your Calendar.
  9. Press the added “Size” columns to sort by size.

Once done, you can switch back to the Day/Week/Month view via;
Change View-> Calendar

Note 1: After deleting a lot of data, you might want to compact your pst- or ost-file afterwards to also actually free up some disk space immediately.

Note 2: If you have a lot of items with attachments and you only want to delete the attachments or store them outside of Outlook, then you can speed up or even automate this process by using an attachment stripping/saving add-in. For instance;
Attachment Save from Sperry Software.
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