Problems Solved
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Why is Outlook ‘not responding’?
Q I’ve been using Office 2016 for quite a few years without problem, but recently, Outlook 2016 has started to hang with a ‘not responding’ error message every so often – perhaps when creating an appointment or email, or just filing an email. I can force Outlook to close and reload it but this problem is really annoying. I’ve tried repairing Office, uninstalled and reinstalled the whole suite, replaced Office 2016 with Office 365, and checked my drives for errors. Everything seems in order but nothing helps. The only thing I haven’t tried is a clean install, but I am loath to do it as there are a lot of programs that would need to be reinstalled. Any ideas?
Michael Chappell
A You’ve clearly tried lots of options, but one thing you didn’t mention – and it’s a factor that can bring Outlook to its knees, and often suddenly – is the size of the email database. For this, Outlook 2016 defines a default maximum size of 50GB.
To be clear, that allows for a vast number of emails and attachments, and few people are likely to hit the 50GB ceiling quickly, if ever. Nonetheless, the bigger the database file grows, the slower Outlook will run. Should the file tip over the 50GB mark, which Outlook allows to happen without warning, then it can slow to a total crawl.
Fortunately, the program has built-in tools to help. First, spend a little time deleting old or otherwise unwanted emails. You can do this manually, with the Delete (Del) key, or by clicking File followed by Tools, and then making use of the options there. Clicking ‘Empty Deleted Items Folder’ will do just that (see screenshot ), while choosing Mailbox Cleanup will open a menu that will allow you to set search criteria, so you can look for old emails, or perhaps those above a certain
