"Shredding" your Outlook Documents

Have you ever used the "Tools/Recover Deleted Items..." option in Outlook? A friend tipped me to it earlier this year. If your company uses Outlook for email, get familiar with this option and use it often to clean up after yourself. You don't need to keep personal (or worse yet, incriminating) emails within easy reach of an Outlook administrator.

Deleting Items
You delete email all the time, and are probably familiar with the Outlook "deleted items" folder: (deleted items folder)

To clear space for you mailbox (most administrators enforce a size limit) on the mail server, you probably clear this folder routinely. You do this by deleting all items from the "deleted items" folder, kind of like clearing the recycling bin on your file system.

(emptied deleted items)

Clearing Deleted Items, for Good

To remove the items "for good", go to the Tools/Recover Deleted Items menu option and delete all Outlook documents for a third and final time. The "X" icon takes care of it for you. CYA!